Prisoner of Love

by Jean S. MacLeod

  “He went with Renson’s expedition to the Himalayas, and I believe he has been twice in the Antarctic,” Julius said. “But his real work—his future success—would have been in surgery.”

  “It seems a great pity,” Laura murmured. “Surgeons are born and not made.”

  “You’re an idealist, Laura!” he said. And then, when Holmes had left them: “Dare I hope that you have made up your mind about the future?”

  She met his eyes, instantly aware that he expected her to say “yes,” and her heart began to beat swiftly, as if she had been running.

  “It is ‘yes’, Julius,” she said. “But I only wish that I was more sure of what I had to give.”

  “My dear,” he said, coming to stand beside her, “how absurd! I ask you for no more than your undivided attention—your love, if you like to put it that way.”

  “What other way could there be?” she asked, turning toward him with a shy smile. “Oh, Julius! I do love and respect you, and I hope, more than anything else, that I can make you happy.”

  He took her hands, drawing her to him.

  “That will be enough,” he said. “If we can find happiness together I shall be well content.”

  His eyes were no very definite color as he bent to kiss her, neither green nor gray, but the light in them was surely and unmistakably the gleam of triumph.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Long afterwards Laura was to realize that Julius must have had his plans well laid for their marriage even before he had asked her to be his wife. He could see no reason for delay, deciding that their engagement should be announced immediately, followed by a wedding in the late spring or early summer.

  Two months did not seem so very far away when she had so much to do, Laura thought. Shyly she broke the news to the two girls in the flat, surprised and a little hurt when the blunter Gillian remarked that her fiancé was surely a great deal older than she was, considering the eminence to which he had risen in his profession.

  “He’s exactly eight years older than I am,” she found herself replying a trifle sharply. “A difference in age doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “No,” Gillian decided, still rather doubtfully, “perhaps not when a man has had to give so much to his career. Then, too, he’s been married before, hasn’t he?”

  “Only for a short time,” Laura told her. “His wife died rather tragically, in Scotland, I believe.”

  “You did mention he had a house up there?"

  “Yes. We’re going there for part of our honeymoon.”

  Julius had arranged that, and she saw Gillian glance at her in some surprise and then away again, as if she had meant to say that she wouldn’t have liked to spend a honeymoon in Scotland under the circumstances.

  “I hope you’re going to be happy, Laura,” the more gentle Anne said two weeks before the wedding. “I know you and Doctor Behar have a great deal in common and he’s desperately handsome and fascinating, and I suppose his having been married before doesn’t really matter—” Laura knew that it would matter to Anne because she was the romantic type to whom first love was essential, but did first love really matter all that much? And for her this was first love! She was wholly and completely in love with Julius.

  “I hope you’re right about this Laura,” Nurse Roath said in her rich Irish brogue when she finally handed in her resignation at the hospital.

  “I know I’m right, Mary,” Laura protested instantly. “I’ve always wanted to be married to someone like Julius—sharing his life and his success and helping him with his career.”

  She paused, and in the small, electric silence she seemed to hear all the little sounds of the busy hospital that she had come to love receding farther and farther away.

  “You’ll only be his wife,” Mary reminded her almost tartly. “A man like Julius Behar doesn’t need any help with his career.”

  That was foolish, of course, Laura decided, and probably the remark was slightly tinged with envy. Mary had always been quick enough to express her wholehearted admiration of Julius’s skill in the operating room in the past. She could not—would not—let these adverse criticisms sway her. She was completely sure of what she wanted to do.

  Julius had been more than kind about Lance, too. He was to stay with Holmes for the two weeks they would be in Scotland, and afterwards Lance and Holmes would be sent to Scotland during the school holidays.

  “Dunraven is a boy’s paradise,” Julius had said. “He can fish, and Holmes will teach him to use a gun and sail a boat.”

  What more could she wish for? Already Lance was Julius’s willing slave, ready to do everything he asked.

  Two days before the wedding, when she went to Harley Street one afternoon to deposit a suitcase, Julius put the prospectus of a well-known public school on the table between them.

  “I want you to have a look at this, Laura,” he said. “I have made arrangements for Lance to go to Ashleigh in the Michaelmas term, and I thought we might run down there this afternoon and take a look at the place.”

  It was a bolt out of the blue, and if it was meant to surprise her, it certainly had that effect. Of course, it was wonderful of Julius, utterly generous, but she wished that he had given them more time to consider it. She had no idea how Lance would react to the thought of a boarding school, and surely there would have to be some sort of interview.

  “We’ve been lucky enough to be offered a vacancy,” Julius said, as if he had guessed the reason for her hesitation. “Lance will go down and see the headmaster while we are away.”

  “Will we be taking him with us this afternoon?” Laura asked, acutely aware of a sudden sense of loss when she thought of the coming months without her brother’s companionship.

  “I don’t think Lance needs to be with us this afternoon,” Julius said. “You can mention Ashleigh to him, though, when we get back.”

  Laura still had a lot to do, but she accepted the idea of the drive into the country eagerly enough because she had seen so little of Julius during the past few weeks. He had told her, laughingly, that he was putting his house in order, but she could see no appreciable difference in Harley Street and supposed that he had used it as a figure of speech, wondering shyly if he had many adjustments to make before their marriage and what would become of Holmes when they finally returned to London.

  “Julius,” she asked as they drove across the Downs, “will you keep Holmes?”

  He half turned from the wheel, appearing to bring his thoughts back from some distance to answer her.

  “Holmes? Good gracious, yes! I would be utterly lost without Holmes in London.”

  “I wondered what you felt about it,” she said. “I know he manages everything very well. I hope we can fit in together.”

  “My dear Laura!” he smiled, “there’s no question of you and Holmes not fitting in. I can assure you that you're not in the least likely to get in each other’s way.”

  She felt relieved and settled down to enjoy the remainder of the afternoon. The school was situated in wonderful parkland beside a river, a majestic Gothic building with a proud tradition stretching back for over four hundred years. Treading the quiet of its arched cloisters and looking out across the greenest grass she had ever seen toward the playing fields, Laura could only be aware of an overwhelming gratitude to the man walking by her side.

  They strolled down the gradual slope to the river and stood under an ancient elm while the headmaster told them something of the school’s history, and then they returned for tea in his study.

  “Do you think we acquitted ourselves well enough?” Julius asked with a quick flash of humor as they drove away. “It depends very much on that, I would say.”

  “He knew who you were,” Laura pointed out. “I was hopelessly nervous, but you needn’t have been!”

  He smiled, not answering, and she said rather wistfully, “It was the chapel that impressed me most, Julius. What a wonderful atmosphere to grow up in! No boy could fail to respond to it. I want to thank you
for doing all this for Lance.”

  He smiled down at her.

  “Harley Street is hardly the place for a boy to run about,” he said briefly.

  She tried not to feel slightly chilled, nor to imagine that Julius did not want Lance. The idea was too ridiculous when he was already doing so much.

  “Golly!” Lance exclaimed when she broke the news to him. “Must I go, Laurie? I mean—I thought I would be with you.”

  “It’s a wonderful chance,” she appealed, feeling a slight betrayal as she looked into his confused blue eyes. “You’ll love it once you’re there living among other boys of your own age, having so much to do and so many friends. It’s such a splendid education, too.”

  “O.K.!” he agreed. “If that’s what you and Julius really want.”

  “It was Julius who thought of it,” she explained, not quite knowing why she should have thought it necessary to make the explanation at all.

  The next two days were so busy she scarcely had time to think about Ashleigh. Julius had made all the necessary arrangements with Holmes, and Lance seemed to be quite enamored of the idea now.

  Their wedding was to be a comparatively quiet one, but nothing would have kept the nursing staff at the hospital from sending every available representative along to the church. They came in their blue capes lined with scarlet, sitting in the back pews in a tight little phalanx that made her heart miss a beat as she walked down the aisle with a very proud and correct brother by her side. They seemed to be her final link with St. Clement’s, the last contact she might have with the hospital for a very long time.

  Eventually, she supposed, she would return there on social occasions as Julius’s wife, but that, perhaps, would not be quite the same.

  Anne and Gillian followed her down the aisle. She had found it too difficult to choose between them and had asked them both to be bridesmaids.

  Julius, standing before the altar as he waited for her, looked very tall and distinguished in his faultless morning coat and dove-gray waistcoat, and she felt her heart caught up in a thrill of pride as he turned toward her. Then, with the most abrupt suddenness, the sun seemed to desert their part of the chancel and the church was cool and still and dark as they repeated their vows.

  When they returned from the vestry, however, the sun had broken through the clouds and was shining again as brightly as ever. Laura put her hand on her husband’s arm, and Julius’s strong, fine fingers closed over it possessively.

  The reception at one of London’s larger West End hotels was lavish yet appropriately discreet. Friends and colleagues clustered around to wish them well. Laura had no idea that Julius knew so many distinguished people, and he insisted on the reception being his responsibility. She ceased to argue with him after a while, aware that she could not have afforded anything like this present outlay.

  When it was time for them to say goodbye, she clung to Lance rather foolishly. Her cheeks were flushed and her voice was not quite steady when she said, “You’re going to have a wonderful time with Holmes, and I’ll write and tell you all about Scotland just as soon as I get there.”

  “Be sure you do!” he said in an adult, offhand way which was meant to reassure her about his own happiness. “I’ll be waiting to hear what you think about it.”

  Long afterwards Laura was to realize how little of the truth she was able to put into those first letters she wrote to him from Dunraven.

  Julius arranged to take his car north with him by rail as far as Inverness and to motor the remainder of the distance from there. For the first time in her life Laura realized how comfortable it was to travel with every detail thought out for her beforehand. Julius was evidently quite well known on the particular train and the stewards in the dining car reserved them a table. Their luggage was stacked into their first class sleeping berth with brief efficiency and they were alone at last.

  Laura took off her small, close-fitting traveling hat and tossed it into the rack above her head, running her fingers through her hair to free it.

  “Well,” Julius said, “how does it feel?”

  She gave him a small, shy smile.

  “To be Mrs. Julius Behar? Give me time! It’s all very, very new yet.”

  He said: “You’re quite different, Laura,” and for the first time she was remembering Helene, the girl who had been his wife for little more than a year. Had he taken Helene to Scotland, too, on a honeymoon trip just like this? It was nothing new for Julius to be sitting facing his bride of a few hours, seeing the wonder of love in her eyes and the shy confusion, but she wished that he hadn’t compared her with the dead Helene quite so obviously.

  Then, determinedly, she thrust all thoughts of Helene out of her mind. They could not live in the past, neither she nor Julius. The present and the future were theirs.

  “Tell me about Scotland,” she said as they sat over their coffee and cigarettes. “I’ve never been any farther north than Edinburgh. Are we completely in the wilds at Dunraven?”

  “Wester Ross is remote,” he conceded, “but it depends what you mean by ‘the wilds.’ Coigach is isolated and we have no near neighbors, but that is as it should be.”

  “Yes.” Suddenly her cheeks were burning under his straight, demanding look. “Do you own the house, Julius?”

  “The house and the island it stands on, and several hundred acres of land on either side of the loch,” he told her. “It is a fair property and the loch itself is practically our own. There’s a small township farther inland—no more than a dozen cottages and a scattered croft or two—but the people there don’t concern us very much. We face the sea and the North Minch. The easiest access to these outlying promontories on the west coast of Scotland is by sea, but they are, of course, inadequately served. The larger townships have a bi-weekly steamer calling on its way to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, but Dunraven is too far north for that. In the winter it can be completely cut off. In the summer,” he assured her with a smile, “it can be an earthly paradise.”

  “I’m longing to see it,” she told him, forcing back the vague sense of disquiet that suddenly assailed her at the thought of their complete isolation from the outside world. It was ridiculous to think of Dunraven as a prison.

  The train thundered on, and at ten o’clock Julius rose and began to gather their hand luggage together. Immediately an attendant relieved him of everything but the pile of magazines he had bought for Laura at the station bookstall, and they walked steadily along the swaying train in his wake, past the blind doors of other sleepers, till they reached their own.

  “I hope you will find everything all right, sir,” the man said. “If there’s anything else you wish—”

  Julius dismissed him with a handsome tip.

  “I thought the fellow was never going to leave us alone,” he said when the door finally closed on the uniformed back and they were alone together.

  “They’re very attentive,” Laura murmured. “But then, Julius, you must be used to that by now.”

  “I suppose so,” he shrugged. “It can be irritating on occasion, though.” He stood watching her in the confined space of the sleeper. “I’ll smoke a last cigarette and give you more room,” he suggested. “We could have flown north and avoided the train journey,” he added, “but I wanted to bring the car. It will let us get about a bit while we’re there.”

  He went into the corridor, closing the door behind him, and Laura undressed and washed as quickly as she could. Her heart was beating fast, seeming to drum in unison with the flying wheels as the train thundered on. Then, without a sound, Julius had come back into the compartment. She was unaware of the opening door until she sensed him standing behind her and his hands came down swiftly and possessively on her bare shoulders. He kissed her briefly on the nape of the neck.

  “You’re very beautiful, Laura,” he said thickly as he turned her to face him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When the sun broke through the blinds they were already in Scotland. There had been on
ly one stop during the night. Laura had been vaguely aware of it; aware, too, of Julius, restless and unsleeping, fumbling with the blind at the narrow window. She had not spoken because he had believed her asleep and because she sensed that he might resent intrusion at that moment. His uneasiness seemed to be more of the spirit than the result of any physical discomfort, and he had not occupied his berth for long.

  She dozed and slept again, tired after the excitements of the day before, which seemed to be receding farther and farther into the past with every mile they traveled. The more secure past.

  The suggestion troubled her a little as she rose and dressed. Julius had gone, probably to order their breakfast, and she took the opportunity to wash and dress in the confined space while he was away.

  Outside the sun was very bright and high hills dominated the horizon. She knew that they were somewhere in Perthshire and a new excitement kept her beside the window. Jagged peaks pierced the sky, high and dark against the morning blue, remote mountain tops of great beauty, with white clouds sailing serenely above them. Sudden bright flashes of loch water gleamed far below the track and were gone, and all sound was muted as the train plunged into the dark green heart of a vast pine forest. The tops of the trees seemed to touch the sky and the mountains vanished, only to reappear again cradling a blue river in a mighty gorge.

  They thrust their way through a narrow pass with blue water gleaming beyond it, and Julius came to tell her that they could have breakfast whenever they liked. He was remote again, no longer the passionate lover of the night before, all his ardor veiled behind the mask of the successful physician.

  “We’re through the Grampians,” he explained. “We should be coming to Aviemore. This is perhaps the finest scenery you’ll see till we reach the west coast.”

  Laura was looking through the wider corridor window.