Sunflower Summer

by Sue Peters

  'What, in grounds as extensive as those?' Keir asked her disbelievingly.

  'Just the same, she wants her father to have the wall pulled down from round the gardens, and ranch fencing put up there instead. She said it would modernise the place.'

  'What?' Oliver Gray looked scandalised. 'Doesn't the woman realise what would happen to all those fruit trees that are trained against the wall, if she did a thing like that? The old Squire would turn in his grave !' he exploded.

  'The Lisles aren't gardeners, I'm afraid,' Mary Gray explained as Keir looked puzzled. 'They're successful business people ...'

  'Newly successful,' her husband interrupted impatiently. 'The trouble is, their wealth stems from a large pools win, not from hard work, so they're not too fussy how they spend it.'

  'Are they patients of yours?' Keir wanted to know.

  'No, they're not.' The reply was brusque. 'The village facilities aren't good enough for them. They use a private practice in the town. But it doesn't prevent Lisle himself from being on the local Planning Committee that wants to pull our hospital down,' he growled. 'What does he know of the needs of the area? He hasn't been here five minutes.'

  'But he inherited the Manor?' Keir looked puzzled.

  'He bought it,' Mary Gray intervened hastily, checking what threatened to be another explosion from her husband. 'When the old Squire died, his son had to sell up—death duties.' She shrugged expressively. 'He's gone abroad to live now, but we miss the family dreadfully. They were part of the village.' Her voice was wistful for days gone by. 'They had their roots here, so of course they were interested in the place, involved.'

  'It's good to have roots,' Keir said softly, and Nan glanced up at him with curious eyes. Her uncle had told her something of his background, but at the time, occupied with household affairs during her aunt's illness, she had not taken much notice. Now, scraps of what he had recounted came back to her.

  'He belongs to an' old family, and a large one. He's the youngest of five children, and he's got three older brothers, so unless there's a disaster he can't inherit the family home.'

  'Raven Hall—isn't it somewhere north of here?'

  'It's on the Marches,' her uncle reminded her. 'I pointed it out to you once, years ago, when we spent that holiday walking in the Offa's Dyke area.'

  'So the youngest son has to earn a living.' Having to earn her own, Nan thought it scant reason for sympathy.

  'No, he inherited his grandmother's money, which makes him quite independent. That's why I admire him for not wasting his life. He's got a fine mind—interested in research.' That would be the real link between Keir and her uncle, she realised suddenly. Research. The meeting of two minds on the same plane.

  'Steve and David will think we've taken root here.' Nan jumped up from her chair as the hall clock chimed. 'I said seven o'clock, and it's half past six already. We shall have to be quick and change if we're going.' She half hoped Keir would say he preferred to stay where he was, but he was behind her as she mounted the stairs. She heard his door slam, and in spite of the fact that she only took time for a hasty wash, and slipped quickly into her tennis whites—a short, pleated skirt and a vee-necked sleeveless top, adding a long length scarlet woolly jacket for coming-home warmth—he was waiting for her in the hall when she got down.

  'Won't you be a bit too warm in long slacks?' She checked herself hastily. She had spoken without thinking, as she would have done to her uncle's previous assistant, forgetting for the moment that she was not on the same terms of easy familiarity with Keir.

  'I don't think so.' He looked surprised. 'We're playing doubles, after all, and there'll only be time for about an hour's knockabout before dusk.'

  He sounds as if he's expecting a game of pat-ball with the local school children, thought Nan, smarting under the implication that a game of tennis at Minster could be little more.

  'So long as you'll be comfortable,' she said indifferently. Let him find out for himself! she thought, her irritation in no way appeased by his air of casual elegance. His dark blazer, with the badge of a famous public school on the pocket, was as beautifully tailored as his other clothes. She saw Marcia Lisle's eyes widen as she walked beside Keir up the steps of the Club House, and blanched at the thought of the evening ahead. David was too good-natured to be true. She did not relish spending several hours in Marcia's company, or that of her brother.

  'Hello there! We just beat you to it.' Steve rescued her temporarily, and steered them both over to where her husband struggled with the broken lace of his tennis shoe.

  'I've got another lace somewhere, I know.' Nan could hear him grumbling as they approached, and Steve laughed.

  'Here you are.' She reached into the pocket of her shorts and produced the required tie. 'Meet my husband, Keir, David, this is Doctor ... I don't think anyone told me your name this morning, we were too busy,' she discovered.

  'Raven—but call me Keir.' He shook hands with the other man in a friendly fashion, and from behind his back Nan exhaled a relieved breath. Keir's aloof manner could be misinterpreted, and she liked the Whitworths too well to want to offend them.

  'Keir—that's an unusual name.' Marcia strolled across to join them, and Nan glanced quickly at Steve, then away again. Her friend was in the same kind of attractive but workmanlike whites as herself, but the blonde-haired girl from the Manor made them both look shabby,' she thought vexedly. She dared not meet Steve's eyes again, fearing that if she did her own self-control might slip, and show what she thought in her face.

  'We don't often get a new man at the Club.' Marcia's china blue eyes roamed boldly over Keir, excluding the others with him as if they were invisible, thought Nan irritably, accustomed to Marcia's reaction to any new, presentable male, but unable to stem ,the impatience it always raised in her. She saw Marcia glance at, but patently not recognise, the badge on Keir's pocket. .

  'Isn't it pretty?' Her long scarlet nails traced the heraldic design curiously, and as she bent forward her low-cut blouse, which though cool was more suitable to top a dirndl skirt than the brief and rather too tight shorts below it, opened revealingly. Nan felt her cheeks grow warm, and sent a look of appeal to Steve, but she was regarding her husband with undisguised amusement on her face. David gazed at Marcia open-mouthed, and his face was the picture of embarrassment.

  He'll know better than to invite her another time, thought Nan grimly, but just the same she felt glad David was like that. Despite their world-wide travelling, and their happy ability to mix in any kind of company, her two friends had remained—nice, she thought thankfully. David, in particular, was distinctly old-fashioned so far as women were concerned. -She glanced across at Keir, but his face was expressionless. Perhaps because he's a doctor he doesn't notice, she thought hopefully, but nothing of what he thought showed in his expression, and she could not see his eyes, which she had discovered were wont to betray him.

  'Aren't we ever going to play?' Rodney Lisle asked petulantly from the depths of a deck chair further along the veranda. There was a glass on the table at his elbow, and Nan smoothed out a quick frown. Rodney was eighteen, and it was high time his father found him something to do, she thought critically. If hearsay was to be believed, he spent far too much of his time idling about the local country club, and at his age he should not need restoration from a glass at seven o'clock in the evening. Money in undisciplined hands could be anything but a blessing, she thought, unable to resist comparison with Keir's dedication to his profession, to Rodney's discredit.

  'Let's got' David exploded into relieved action. 'Will you and Keir take us on first, Nan?'

  'That'll leave time for you and Rodney to get warmed up with a singles first.' Steve remembered her husband's manners for him, and spoke directly to Marcia, checking what Nan felt sure was a protest before Marcia had time to utter more than, 'But I thought…'

  'Fine.' Rodney fell in with her wishes easily enough. 'We'll let you two tire them out for us first,' he grinned.

  '
He makes Steve and David sound like the Terror of the Courts,' Keir commented, squaring up to Steve's service. She and David had won the toss, and Nan quietly took her place at the other end of the court beside Keir.

  I should have warned him, she told herself, but she felt unrepentant. It would do his ego good to discover for himself that Minster did not remain in a coma all the time. His derogatory comment still smarted.

  Steve's first delivery took him by surprise. The sheer speed of it caught him unawares, and she eased the pace of the next one so that he was ready for it. The fact that she played down to him was obvious, and it immediately put him on his mettle. He slammed the ball back hard with a forceful backhand drive that gave Nan a quick thrill to watch. He was good— Very good. She was no mean performer herself, and her game had rapidly improved with the frequent opportunity to play with the Whitworths during her prolonged stay at Minster. If Keir was to join them, it was good to know that he was at least her equal—would probably be her superior if he played a lot with Steve and David, their playing would improve his as it had done her own.

  After her first concession, Steve gave no quarter, and neither did David. Nan and Keir were outclassed, but after his initial surprise the doctor responded to the challenge, and their opponents had to work hard to retain their supremacy.

  'You take it,' Keir called cheerfully, and Nan lobbed back the ball he gave her, the game drawing them together in a common cause against their opponents, and when Marcia and Rodney called from the court seat that their allotted time was up, and it was their turn now, they broke off to a round of applause from the crowd of Club members who had gathered unnoticed on the side lines to watch the battle.

  'Phew! That was fast,' Keir exclaimed. 'Why didn't you warn me?' He strolled beside Nan off the court, giving way to Marcia and Rodney. 'Those two are in a class of their Own,' he; said feelingly, 'and you knew all along,' he accused her.

  'They're ex-professionals,' Nan confessed, her eyes dancing mischievously. 'They know the courts at Wimbledon as well as they know the lanes around Minster,' she admitted her perfidy without shame. 'Did you never follow the international matches?' she enquired curiously. If he had, he would have surely known their names; Steve and David had only been retired from the game for just over two years.

  'There hasn't been much time during the last few years,' he replied, suddenly sober, and once again there was that withdrawn look in his eyes that made Nap feel shut out.

  'Research?' She did not mean to pry, but she did not know what else to say.

  'That—and other things,' he answered her obliquely. 'The next time we come, remind me to change into shorts,' he digressed, his mood changing with the mercurial rapidity she had come to expect from him. 'You were right about long slacks being too hot.' He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief, and mopped his brow with an exaggerated gesture that drew a laugh from Nan.

  'A cold drink and a sit down will soon cure that.' She swung her racquet gaily, acknowledging numerous greetings as she led the way back up the Club House steps.

  'At least we acquitted ourselves better than those two,' Keir said smugly, pointing glass in hand to where Marcia and Rodney made a poor showing, although Steve and her husband had slowed down considerably for their benefit, pleading tiredness after their first game to salve the pride of the new couple facing them.

  Keir took a long drink. 'This is nice,' he said appreciatively, and leaned back with evident contentment. Nan did not know whether he meant the view, the game, or the grapefruit and soda he held in his hand. He refused anything stronger, with an indifference that told her that her earlier intuition about him not being a regular drinker was accurate.

  'We've got a pick-me-up ready for you.' Keir thrust the tray of soft drinks at the other four when they eventually -joined them, and collapsed on the bench seat wearily.

  'That's a good backhand stroke you've got,' David congratulated Keir. There was no condescension in his manner, just interest in a player who had given him an unexpectedly enjoyable game. 'I'd like to meet you across the nets again some' time, when you've got an hour to spare,' he said hopefully.

  'And I you,' Keir accepted his invitation with a promptness! that-told Nan he meant it. 'I thoroughly enjoyed our battle tonight.' He spoke as if he was surprised he had enjoyed himself, thought Nan, sensitive to her friends' reaction to her uncle's partner. Perhaps he had come from a sense of duty, the need of the local practitioner to meet the local inhabitants? He had no need to come, she had given him the opportunity to back out, and he had not taken it.

  'Did you play a lot before you came here?' Steve asked him, as interested as her husband. It was not often the two could find worthy opponents for a doubles, and they had perforce to keep their play up to standard by sharpening their skills on one another.

  'Not as much as I'd have liked,' Keir answered her readily enough. 'There never seemed time.'

  There it was again. Nan detected that faint undercurrent in his voice that set her wondering. He lay back in his chair talking to her two friends with the air of one enjoying a rare treat, and she wondered what had commanded so much of his time over the last few years that he had none left for a game he so obviously enjoyed. In a city, he would have had facilities at hand in the shape of indoor courts that would enable him to play all the year round, a thing most country-dwellers would envy.

  'Did you order something to liven this up?' Rodney grimaced as he took a drink of his grapefruit juice.

  'Is it too bitter? Would you prefer orange, or ...?' Keir looked round for a waiter.

  'I meant something a bit stronger,' Rodney began scornfully, and Marcia interrupted him quickly.

  'Not tonight, Rodney. Dad's coming home early, and you know what he'll say.' She gave her brother a ferocious scowl, which she turned into a smile as she met Keir's eye. 'My father's on the local Planning Committee,' she made it sound as if he was on a Royal Commission. 'There's a meeting tomorrow, and he's had to come back for that. He's got business interests in Birmingham,' she said importantly.

  'Doctor Gray and I will be at the same meeting.' Keir spoke of his partner with formal respect, and Nan found she liked him for it. In some ways, Keir seemed as old-fashioned as David, and beside Rodney's brashly modern manners Nan found it a point in his favour. 'They're discussing the hospital, so of course we'll have to be there.' He did not say what point of view he intended to put forward, and Nan felt her hackles rise. Lisle pere would have an unexpected ally, she thought angrily, and wished the subject had not arisen. It had spoiled the evening for her, and she admitted to herself that until now she had enjoyed it as much as Keir seemed to be doing.

  'Oh, that! They're always discussing the hospital,' Marcia pouted.

  'It's got a fine laboratory,' Keir responded quietly, and Nan stared. So he admitted there was something in Minster that he approved of.

  'Why bother to rebuild the place, when it's easier to bulldoze if down and transfer everything to the hospital at Hopminster?' Marcia shrugged. 'My father says he could use the ground it stands on for development,' she added carelessly, and Nan's lips tightened. She had suspected that self-interest might lie behind the senior Lisle joining forces with those who wished to destroy the hospital, but this open admission was infamous. She could feel anger rise inside her, and had difficulty in remaining silent as Marcia went on.

  'If you back my father when it comes to voting whether to let the hospital stay here or not, I'm sure he'd see you had an even better laboratory at the town hospital.' She looked across at Keir with glowing eyes. 'He's well able to, you know, he's got plenty of money,' she said crudely, and leaned across the table towards the doctor, to David's evident dismay, adding provocatively, 'if you did, you wouldn't find me ungrateful, either.'

  CHAPTER FOUR

  'You promised I could go an' see Beauty,' Timmy reminded Oliver Gray at lunch.

  'How about right after school this afternoon?' Nan responded to the look of appeal her uncle shot in her direction, and s
miled as it turned to one of swift gratitude. 'I'll pick you up as soon as you come out,' she offered, 'and I'll bring your overalls with me. You can put them on over your school trousers to ride in, and your riding hat's still in the Land-Rover from when we fetched your clothes.' Keir was going with Oliver Gray to the meeting of the Planning Committee at two o'clock and would not need the vehicle, she knew.

  'Pick me up from the hospital on your way,' Keir suggested. 'The Committee is meeting there, and their business that involves me should be over by four. David suggested I drop in some time and have a look round his outfit,' he explained, 'and if you're going there . . .' He left his unfinished sentence hanging like a question in mid-air between them.

  'About four, then,' Nan agreed. 'But if you're not out of the meeting we won't wait,' she warned him. She did not intend to disappoint Timmy simply to please Keir.

  'I'll be there,' he promised, and when she drew up at the hospital with the excited boy beside her, his riding hat clasped ready in his arms, Keir was standing at the entrance door waiting for them.

  'I've got another treat in store for you before you go for your ride.' He reached inside the vehicle and plucked Timmy into his arms. 'If I sit you on my shoulder,' he lifted the boy high, 'you can see inside the window to where your mummy and daddy are. Wave to them,' he urged, 'it'll do them more good than any tonic I can prescribe,' he smiled at the child's delight. 'No, you can't go in to them,' he answered his eager question, 'you have to be over fourteen to be a visitor in hospital.' Nan noticed he spoke to the boy as if he was much older than his six years, stating facts simply, and gaining a calm acceptance that justified his trust in the child's sense.

  'Are you going to lift Nan up, too?' Timmy jigged up and, down on the gravel path as Keir set him on his feet again.

  'Shall I?' Keir looked down at her gravely, and for a wild moment Nan thought he would comply with Timmy's suggestion, and pick her up in the same ignominious manner.