by Peggy Gaddis
“Nothing could be further from the truth, Tim,” he stated flatly. “I don’t quite know how the rumor got around.”
“Don’t you?” asked Tim. And then, as though he hadn’t meant to say that, he flushed and would not meet Scott’s suddenly sharp eyes.
“I’d like to ask a question, Tim, off the record. Give me the truth, no matter what it is. Mind?”
Tim grinned, but there was a slightly apprehensive look in his eyes. “You should know me well enough by now, Scott, to know that if I answer at all, it will be truthfully.”
Scott nodded. “Then did someone suggest to you that it would be nice of you to offer me a loan?”
Tim hesitated, his face flushed brick-red, his eyes refusing to meet Scott’s.
“Well, I daresay if I’d ever thought that you wanted to specialize, I might have thought of offering” — he began uncertainly, reluctantly.
“Was it Chloe?” demanded Scott, stiff with embarrassment and anger.
“It’s only natural that a girl like Chloe should be ambitious.”
“Thanks, Tim. I’d better be getting back to town.”
“Wait, aren’t you staying for lunch?”
“I think not, thanks. I’ve a bit of unfinished business to attend to.”
“Now see here, Scott, you don’t want to lose your temper and go off halfcocked. Women are funny people, Chloe didn’t understand how you’d feel.”
“This is something Chloe and I will have to settle for ourselves, Tim.” Scott’s voice was taut. “Our whole future together depends on a clear understanding of our problems, especially the one of our future income, here and now. I can only ask you to forgive her unbearable presumption. I’m afraid she doesn’t understand my profession very well. See you Thursday,” said Scott, and stalked off to his car, while Tim stood in the drive watching him unhappily.
- 14 -
As Scott drove to the Parham place that evening, his mind was busy with his rather heavy thoughts, and he was a little startled to realize that he had arrived. Before he could get out of the car, the screen door of the house slapped open and Chloe came running down the drive, her yellow hair curling almost to her shoulders, her slender body clad in a crisp blue pique dress.
She laughed a small, mischievous laugh as she tumbled into the car beside him and slammed the door and said quickly, “Hurry! Get started! Because if you don’t that darned telephone will ring and you’ll have to dash out on a call.”
Scott’s heaviness lifted a little and his pulse stirred. She was so lovely, so gay and alluring. And he was crazy about her.
“Oh, I’m not that important,” he offered the disclaimer, grinning warmly at her as he drove away.
She slid close to him. One hand curled inside his arm and for a moment she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder kittenishly. Then she sat back, very circumspect, though her eyes were dancing a little.
“To me you are,” she told him softly.
“In fact,” said Scott, and his tone was grave, “I’m just wondering if you really know what you are letting yourself in for. A girl as lovely as you are, a girl so clever and sweet and wonderful, could do a lot better for herself than a small town family doctor who can never hope to be anything more.”
He heard the small breath that she caught, and then for a moment she was very still. She had drawn away from him and was sitting with one leg drawn under her, so that she was facing him, and her chin was tilted a little, her blue eyes cold.
“This was clinic day at River’s Edge, wasn’t it?” she said at last, her voice silky, cool, faintly feathered with frost.
“Yes, but what’s that got to do with it?”
She gave a little brittle, unamused laugh.
“It’s you who are the idiot, darling, not me,” she told him in that cool, silvery little voice that he had long ago learned meant that she was angry and intended to make someone squirm. “I can always tell when you’ve been at River’s Edge, or even when you’ve been with Kate. You start finding fault with me and sounding as if you’d like to break our engagement.”
“Oh, come now. That’s not true.”
“Of course, I’ve known for a long time that Kate was in love with you. But I did think she had enough honor and decency to let you alone once she knew that you and I were definitely engaged,” said Chloe. “If you’d rather have Kate, all you have to do is say so; I don’t want you, Scott, unless you want me.”
“Darling, you’re jumping to the craziest possible conclusions. Nothing in the world could be further from the truth. Kate in love with me? Darling, I wonder you can say that with a straight face, because you can’t possibly believe it.”
“Then why is it that every time you’ve been with her, you come back to me and try to pick a fight?” she demanded hotly, and now the voice was no longer cool and silvery but touched with anger and a little shrill.
“Darling, I haven’t.”
“The other night going over to the Gordons you started trying to quarrel.”
“That’s not true, Chloe.”
“You began accusing me of all sorts of things and I knew right away you’d been at River’s Edge that day and Kate had told you a lot of lies.”
“I had not seen Kate that day at all,” he told her flatly.
She studied him suspiciously.
“But you did see her today. So what did she say about me? You at least owe me the right to deny or affirm her lies.” There was a small vicious whip in the last words.
“So far as I can remember, your name wasn’t even mentioned. I saw Kate only briefly. But I did talk to Tim a little later.” He was driving, and his eyes were on the road, so he did not catch the small flicker in her eyes before she dropped the lids above them.
“Then what has he been saying to you to make you want to quarrel with me?” she demanded, and now there were tears in her eyes and her voice was shaking. “Because I know he said something. And you pretend that you’re in love with me and yet believe everything they say.”
“Chloe, it was only that I didn’t like your suggesting to him that he finance me while I specialized — ” he began, but her small, shocked gasp stopped him.
“He said that?” she gasped incredulously, her blue eyes very wide.
“You didn’t suggest it?”
Chloe said slowly, her brow furrowed with a little anxious frown, “Let me think a minute, Scott. I can’t remember anything I said that could have given him that impression. The last time I saw him was at that swimming party Kate gave a week ago. I was just chattering away to him. We were both saying how wonderful you were and he was saying what a grand job you were doing, and I said something about how you were capable of being a really famous doctor if only you had the time and the funds to specialize. I’m not sure just how I said it, because it was only a silly joke, anyway, but it was something about wishing you’d have a rich patient who would be so grateful to you he’d leave you a lot of money to finance special studies. Oh, it was just a silly thought, Scott; I don’t even remember much about it.”
“Sweetheart, if that was all — ” He drew her into his arms, but for a moment she resisted him, her hands against his shoulders, pushing him a little away from her, her lovely face lifted to his, very earnest, very sweet.
“That’s all I can remember, and, Scott, surely you know that if I had been awful enough to have deliberately plotted anything like that, I’d be able to remember it,” she pleaded with him.
“Of course I do, sweetheart. I couldn’t believe you’d do a thing like that.”
But she was still resisting him, and now there was more strength in her arms, and her eyes flashed and her mouth thinned.
“You did believe it, Scott,” she reminded him grimly. “You believed it because Tim Ryan said it. And if it had been Kate, you’d have believed it just as much. You believed it enough to come straight to me and start a quarrel.”
“My dearest, I’m not trying to start a quarrel with you. That’s the last thing in the w
orld I want. It’s only that Tim seemed to feel that was what you meant and he was willing to accept the suggestion.”
For a moment she was very still in his arms, and now she let him hold her close and her arms went about his neck as she hid her face against his shoulder. After a moment her voice came to him, muffled. “He was willing to finance you?”
“He seemed to be perfectly willing.”
“But you refused.” It was a statement, yet there was the faintest possible hint of a question.
“Of course I refused. I don’t want to leave Hamilton.”
She drew a deep breath and was sweet and yielding in his arms, and even lifted her mouth for his kiss. And as she nestled a little more securely into his embrace, she said with determined gaiety, “Well, you better had want to stay in Hamilton. Mother and Dad will be furious if you spoil their surprise.”
“Surprise?”
“You mustn’t let them know I told you,” she laughed lightly. “They’re remodeling the upstairs of our house into an apartment for us. All self-contained, with a private entrance and everything.”
“Oh, but they shouldn’t. I want to support you myself.”
She laughed radiantly. “Oh, don’t think you aren’t going to, pet! You can even pay them rent if you like, though I think you’d be silly if you did, because we are going to need every bit of income we have. But you see, Mother knows that you have to take night calls and she wants me there in the house, instead of alone somewhere in a place of our own. It makes sense, don’t you think?”
Apparently the matter was settled in her mind, for now she kissed him lingeringly and said lightly, her eyes dancing, “And now this has all been good clean fun and I hate to spoil it; but to tell the truth, Doctor dear, I’m practically starving. Couldn’t we maybe see about food before I expire on your hands?”
“We could indeed,” he assured her, and now it took no effort to rise to meet her gaiety. His heavy thoughts were gone, his problems had retired gracefully into the back of his mind, and his pulses were thrumming pleasantly with the nearness and the sweetness of her. “I thought we’d have dinner at Covington. Okay by you?”
“Very much okay by me,” she told him happily. “I suppose you gave Miss Henderson the number so she could find you if somebody called?”
“Nope, I’m playing hookey from the telephone and patients,” he told her cheerfully. “Tonight I’m a fellow out with his favorite girl. A fellow who locks his office door at five and forgets the whole thing until tomorrow morning.”
Entranced, Chloe stared at him.
“I can’t believe it,” she breathed.
“Well, of course, I’ll call the office exchange from Covington,” he admitted, and added hastily, “but barring an emergency I’m sure I won’t have any calls.”
Chloe, smiling wryly, lifted her hand, her fingers crossed very firmly. Scott caught the hand, kissed it lightly, and held it beneath his on the wheel.
- 15 -
Scott gave very little conscious thought to the malicious things Chloe had said about Kate. She was jealous, and jealous women were often spiteful and said things without realizing what they were really saying. And as for Kate being in love with him, that was completely absurd. Such were his conscious thoughts during his busy, well-filled days. But sometimes in the evening, as he smoked a last cigarette before he went to sleep, relaxed and not completely in control of his thoughts, the picture of Kate was before him. A picture gravely sweet, steady-eyed, deeply stirring. Once he had thought that he was in love with Kate. If Chloe hadn’t come along — but those were thoughts he would not admit into his mind. He turned firmly away from them and was ashamed that he had felt their force even for a little.
He saw Kate often, of course. He saw her on his clinic days, because she was interested in the clinic and its work, and she and Miss Mabel were the best of friends. Kate, who had had nurse’s aide training, was always glad to lend a hand when it was needed. He also saw her at the many parties and entertainments given for himself and Chloe, and just because the people of Hamilton liked getting together at parties. There didn’t have to be any special reason for a party; and whether there were two couples, or twenty, it was still a party. It was a friendly, hospitable custom, and one of Hamilton’s charms for Scott.
The first few times he saw Kate after that evening when Chloe had assured him that Kate was in love with him, he had had to smother a small feeling of awkwardness that Kate had noticed, with a tiny frown. But by the next morning at the clinic he had himself firmly in hand and he and Kate outwardly resumed their old friendly casual relationship.
There had been a letter from Liss, telling him of her ecstatic happiness, thanking him for the way he had made her understand her own needs and her own desires and urging him and Chloe to include New York on their honeymoon and be guests of the Hanovers.
We have what our friends call “this huge apartment,” she had written gaily. Of course, after Hamilton and the great barns of homes down there, five ordinary-sized rooms doesn’t seem very large to me — until I saw the bill for the rent last month, that is! Anyway, there’s a spick-and-span guest room already in waiting for my dear friends, the young Scott Etheridges, so be sure to make this your New York headquarters, won’t you? I’m writing Chloe, so you needn’t show her this. As a matter of fact, because of the first five pages of this, I’d much prefer that you didn’t show it to anybody. Catch on?
Chloe had told him eagerly of her own letter from Liss and had taken it for granted that they would accept Liss’s invitation. When Scott had pointed out that they really could not afford their share of the entertaining Liss would expect to do, he and Chloe had quarreled and Scott had slammed out of the house in anger.
Immediately he was ashamed of himself. He was tired, nervous, under a strain. And he reminded himself that Chloe was in a like condition. They were getting on each other’s nerves. But they would be married in a little over two weeks, and then they would go quietly away together and rest and get to know each other, and everything would be fine.
He tried hard to deny the small cynical voice somewhere far back in his mind that asked, “Will it? Aren’t you a fool for thinking so?”
It had to work out, because they were going to be married and spend the rest of their lives together, he kept reminding himself. Nor did he realize that the very necessity of that constant reminder was in itself a warning that he could not, or would not, admit….
And then the whole situation came to a wild, incredible climax.
One night they were driving out to the Maysons’ country place for a dinner-dance, at which they were to be honor guests. It was the fifth straight night in a row that they had been out until all hours, and there were lines of weariness in Scott’s face. For no matter how late he was out at night, he had to be up and about at the same hour in the morning. But Chloe looked fresh and gay and excited, and had laughingly admitted that she had slept until two o’clock that afternoon.
She was curled up on the seat beside him, chattering away; Scott had long ago learned that when she was in this blithe mood he could relax a little, not listen too hard and just toss in a word now and then.
The Maysons’ home lay along a country road several miles from the highway, and Chloe had told Scott of the short cut they could take, along a lonely unpaved side road. The weather was so perfect that the road would be easily negotiable and it would save them several miles. The road, like many country roads of its sort, curved along lush fields and between tall trees. And it was as Scott rounded one of these curves that his headlights, flashing for a moment among the trees, fell on a fantastic thing: a scene he was quite sure could exist only in a nightmare.
The white light had illumined for a moment a dense thicket of trees, and moved instantly on; but that instant had been long enough for Scott to see the white glimmer of a shirt, torn and ripped against a black back. He had caught enough to believe that what he had seen had been a man tied to a tree, slumped against his bonds. But
surely it had been a trick of the lighting on his eyes. It couldn’t be…. Yet he swore under his breath, jerked the car to a stop, and turned the headlights on the thicket.
Chloe, startled at his behavior, followed the direction of the light, and screamed raggedly. But Scott was already out of the car, and jumping down into the ditch that separated the road from the woods. He reached the thicket and saw, to his sick pity, that the man’s back was laced with welts and wet with blood. He had been beaten with something like a thick leather strap. Nothing else could have made those brutal gashes and those livid welts.
Swiftly, he touched the man and realized that he still lived. He jerked a knife from his pocket and slashed at the stout clothesline that had bound the wrists together until the hands were swollen out of shape. As the last rope gave way, the man’s body sagged inertly to the ground and lay there. Scott, his eyes blazing with wrath, tried to lift him. But the man stood almost six feet tall and was well built. Scott could drag him, but he could not lift him.
Chloe called to him shakily, “Scott, what is it?”
“Come and help me,” Scott called to her sharply. “We’ve got to get him back to town, to the hospital.”
“Help you?” Chloe stood now on the edge of the ditch in the road, her foamy dress of ivory threaded with silver held carefully, her silver sandals poised where the dust seemed less menacing to their pristine beauty. “Scott, for goodness sake — why, I’d ruin my clothes coming in there. Come on, Scott; we’ll call the police from the Maysons’.”
“We can’t leave him here like this. Hand me my instrument bag out of the car. And then help me get him into the car.”
Dazed, Chloe took the instrument bag and held it for a moment while he waited. And then, her face dark because the moonlight was behind her, she tossed the case to him, and he caught it.
He made a swift examination, and called to her with relief. “His heart action’s pretty good. He’s had a terrific beating but if we can get him to the hospital — ”
