The Doctor's Daughters

by Anne Weale

  Rachel bent to pluck a stem of grass. “I didn’t say I disliked you. I just think your sense of humor is rather odd. I certainly don’t dislike people unless they ask for it.”

  There was a pause while she wound the grass round her finger and Daniel smoked in silence.

  “You know, I think it’s just as well I did butt in on you,” he said conversationally.

  “May one ask why?” she enquired acidly.

  “If you say yes, you could be making a big mistake.”

  “Knowing both of us so well, you naturally feel qualified to advise.”

  “I’ve got reasonable eyesight,” he said smoothly. “I don’t think Harvey could handle you.”

  “Oh, you don’t,” she said, with deceptive calm. “Don’t worry yourself about it, Mr. Elliot. In England, a husband doesn’t ‘handle’ his wife, as you put it. We think brute force and the old lord-and-master attitude is rather primitive. And it’s frightfully eccentric of us, but we don’t take a poll of outside opinions before we commit ourselves.”

  But the sting in her tone did not even ruffle him. “Are you in love with him?” he asked bluntly.

  “That’s my business,” she said indignantly. “If you had any decency, you wouldn’t dream of asking.”

  “There’s nothing indecent about being in love' with someone,” he said dryly.

  “Oh—you’re impossible!” she said helplessly.

  He grinned at her. “I know; you’ll get used to it. Friends?”

  She hesitated, unwilling to capitulate to his charm, yet finding it difficult to resist the twinkle in his eyes.

  “I suppose so,” she said doubtfully. “At least, temporarily.”

  “That’s mighty magnanimous of you, ma am, he said, in the exaggerated drawl which he had affected earlier in the day. “Reckon it’s more’n I deserve.”

  Her mouth curved. “I haven’t shown you the garden yet,” she reminded him. “I’m afraid Aunt Flo is the only person who’s impressed by my rockery. This mulberry tree is our real showpiece. It’s supposed to be three hundred years old.”

  He looked up at the gnarled branches. “It’s certainly a fine specimen.” He rose, holding out a hand to help her up. “I think I’d better admire the rest another time. It’s getting late and young Suzy is waving at you.”

  Rachel looked up at the house and saw her sister leaning over the attic windowsill, waving a poetry book.

  “Oh yes, I promised to hear her recite. Have you any brothers or sisters, Mr. Elliot?”

  “No. My mother died when I was born,” he said briefly. Then: “D’you think you could call me Daniel, or would that be rushing things?”

  “All right. If you’d prefer it,” she said as casually as she could manage.

  He was still holding her hand, and since his grasp was too firm for her to disengage it without a tussle, she was obliged to walk back to the house with her fingers in his, an experience which she found oddly disturbing. At the windows, his hold slackened and she quickly freed her hand and moved ahead of him.

  A little while later he took his leave and, after seeing him to the door, Doctor Burney retired to the surgery to attend to some paper work. By the time Rachel had heard Suzy’s poem, given Bolster his evening meal and washed the second batch of coffee cups, it was well after half-past nine. Returning to the sitting room, she found that Carola and her aunt had also disappeared. Edward had been working on a crossword while he waited for her. But although he tossed it aside and jumped up as soon as she entered, Rachel could not help feeling that it was a singularly prosaic way of occupying her absence., It would have been more flattering, she felt, to have found him pacing the room in a fever of impatience. She was not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when he did not immediately take her in his arms.

  “You must be tired,” he said sympathetically, as she sat down. “Carola ought to help you more.”

  “She loathes housework and she's on her feet all day. It wouldn’t be fair to expect her to do very much,” Rachel said lightly. “My job is much easier, than hers. The hours are different, that’s all.”

  “You manage marvellously. Mother thinks you are a brick to take it on at your age,” Edward said admiringly. “She says most girls can’t be bothered with anything but amusing themselves.”

  “Most girls don’t have such nice families to look after. What did you think of our visitor?”

  “Seems quite a pleasant chap,” Edward said, sitting down beside her. “Pity he barged in on us earlier. Rather embarrassing all round—though I daresay he guessed how the land lay.” He reached for her hand. “I should have waited until we were sure of being alone.”

  Rachel smiled at him. She had a sudden impulse to fling herself into his arms, but she was half afraid that, instead of being enthusiastic, Edward might be shocked. One evening, not long ago, they had taken Bolster for a walk and, on the way home by the river, they had passed another couple from the village. Rachel had smiled at them and grabbed the dog’s collar to stop him rushing over in an excess of friendliness. But when, a little further on, she turned to look at Edward, she had been startled by the expression of distaste on his face—as if lying under a willow tree and whispering together was something improper and offensive. Remembering the episode, she also remembered a remark of Daniel’s and her brow contracted.

  “You haven’t a headache, have you, dear?” Edward asked solicitously. “I thought you didn’t look too bright earlier on. How cold your hand is. Perhaps I ought not to keep you up.”

  “Oh, Edward!” she exclaimed impatiently. Then, seeing his astonishment: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap, but—well, I thought you’d be pleased to have me here.”

  “I am! I’ve been looking forward to it all evening,” he said, flushing. “But I don’t want you to put up with me if you’re feeling rotten.”

  “I’m not. I feel fine,” she insisted. Then, hesitantly: “Edward, do you really love me? I mean, enough to marry me even if everything were against it? If I’d been mixed up in some awful scandal, say.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t imagine you doing anything shady,” he said, looking puzzled. “I suppose the reason I love you is that you’re so ... so sweet and good. You are fond of me too, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I am. Terribly fond,” Rachel said gently.

  “There you are, then,” he said reasonably. “I can’t see the point of asking ourselves hypothetical questions which we can’t possibly answer. Luckily for us, everything is in our favor. I’m pretty sure your father won’t object, and you know how fond Mother is of you.”

  “But is that enough—our being fond of each other and our parents approving?” she said, in a troubled tone. “Marriage is such a tremendous step. It almost frightens me to think how final it is—and how ghastly if one made a mistake.”

  “But we aren’t making a mistake,” he said, with an indulgent smile. “We’ve known each other for years.” He laughed. “If there were any skeletons in our cupboards, they’d have come to light by now, I should think.”

  “But don’t you see—that’s the whole point,” she persisted. “We’ve known each other for so long that I don’t see how we can tell what we feel. What you think is love may be ... just habit. It isn’t as if either of us had much outside experience.”

  “In your case, I should hope not,” he said, smiling. “I agree that I haven’t sown too many wild oats, as they say. I’ve been too busy getting ahead with my job. But I have taken other girls out, you know.”

  “Oh, that dreary Henderson girl and Lola Phillips, you mean,” Rachel said dryly. “That’s very complimentary. The Henderson girl looks like a cod and Lola giggles incessantly and has flat feet. If they were a basis for comparison, I should have half the men in Branford begging me to marry them.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you judged people solely by appearance,” Edward said stiffly. “As a matter of fact, Peggy Henderson is a very charming girl, even if she isn’t exactly glamo
rous. And Lola’s just got engaged to Winthrop’s son.”

  “That must be a joy for her,” Rachel said unkindly. “I suppose Father Winthrop will give them another ghastly house with ye olde Tudor beams all over it and whimsy little plaster gnomes in the garden.”

  “I don’t know why you always sneer at the houses on Stafford Avenue. Personally, I think they’re extremely nice. I should be delighted to live there myself,” Edward said huffily.

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” Rachel said flatly. “In fact, I’d rather live in old Ben Tubbitt’s cottage. At least it’s genuine, and isn’t called ‘Pine Winds’ with ‘No Hawkers’ plastered on the gate.”

  Edward rose to his feet and adjusted his tie. “I think I’d better go,” he said coldly. “You’re obviously not in the mood to discuss anything seriously. I don’t know what’s wrong with having a ‘No Hawkers’ plate on the gate. We’ve had one for years and you have never criticized it before.”

  “I’ve never thought about it before—at least, not as something to do with you,” she said. Then, anxiously: “You don’t really want to live in a road like Stafford Avenue, do you, Edward?”

  “Certainly I do. Why not? It’s the best residential road in Branford and I know most of the people there already. I’m as democratic as the next man, but it’s only natural to prefer to mix with people of one’s own type and outlook, you know.”

  Rachel stifled a groan. She had always known that Mrs. Harvey was an arch snob to whom people were either “dreadfully common” or “so pleasant— and very well connected, you know,” but she had not realized that Edward shared his mother’s views to this extent. She had always thought of him as taking after his father, a kindly, quiet little man who spent most of his time in his greenhouse to avoid his wife’s bridge cronies. Now, abruptly, she realized that she knew even less of Edward than she had supposed, and, so far, the revelation of his innermost feelings was not very encouraging.

  “I’m sorry. I seem in a grumpy mood tonight,” she said wearily. “Perhaps I’m getting a cold. Let’s talk about it another time, shall we?”

  “Do you want me to come round tomorrow?” he asked, with a wounded expression.

  “No, not tomorrow. I’ve promised to baby-sit for the Fosters. Look in on Sunday. I expect I’ll have cheered up by then.”

  “Very well.” He hesitated, opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it. “Don’t bother to see me out,” he said, finally. “I daresay you’ve been overdoing it. A good night’s rest will make you feel altogether different.”

  “I hope so,” Rachel said dismally.

  When he had gone, she leaned her head on her hands and gave vent to a long depressed sigh. It seemed impossible that only a few hours ago he had asked her to marry him, and now everything had gone wrong and there was this horrid self-conscious stiffness between them. For a minute she was tempted to relieve her depression by having a good cry, but then, bracing her shoulders, she stood up and went to make her father’s nightly cup of cocoa.

  Carola was lying on her bed doing bicycling exercises with her legs and fanning her hands to dry her nail varnish when Rachel went upstairs.

  “Well! What has come over you tonight?” the younger girl asked, sitting up.

  “Nothing, as far as I know. What do you mean?” Rachel asked, taking off her shoes and putting them away in the bottom of the wardrobe.

  “There was I in my brand new dress, being madly charming—and what happens?” Carola said cheerfully. “You glower at the man all evening as if he had the plague and then slink off to look at the compost heap or something and come back holding hands. I almost fainted with shock, sweetie.” She giggled. “I hope poor old Edward didn’t notice your carryings-on.”

  Rachel slipped out of her dress arid began to peel off her stockings. “We’ve just had a flaming row,” she said gloomily. “Well, not flaming exactly. More like a damp squib. Oh, Caro, I wish I could cope with men like you do.”

  “More practice, that’s what you need,” Carola said sagely. “It’s time you stopped dallying with Edward and applied yourself to more challenging material. Though you seem to have made a start with Dashing Dan. I must say, I think it’s a bit mean of you to nab him so quickly. But don’t be too smug, duckie, I may lure him away from you.”

  “Lure to your heart’s content. He doesn’t interest me,” Rachel said carelessly.

  “Honestly, Ray, there must be something wrong with you,” Carola said, shaking her head. “Here you are, shut away from the world in a dull domestic rut, and when the most fascinating man just drops out of the blue into your back garden, you calmly say you aren’t interested. It simply isn’t normal. You must be interested. It would be sub-human not to be. Anyway, why were you holding hands if you couldn’t care less about him?”

  “We weren’t. He was holding my hand and I couldn’t get it free,” Rachel said shortly.

  Carola rolled her eyes. “ ‘I couldn’t get it free’,” she mimicked. “You must be stark staring mad to want to! Now truly, Ray, be honest—don’t you see how maddeningly attractive he is?”

  “Yes, I see that he’s fairly good-looking, but I’m not going to swoon over him,” Rachel said levelly. “You know I’ve never fallen for that forceful caveman type.”

  “Hmph, one certainly couldn’t accuse Edward of being a cave-man,” Carola said with a laugh. “He’s so meek and mimsy he makes me want to shout ‘Boo!’ at him.”

  Rachel slipped into her dressing gown and went onto the landing to the bathroom. When she returned, Carola was in her pyjamas, doing strenuous waist-whittling exercises.

  “Sorry, old thing,” her sister said contritely. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said that about Edward. He’s not so bad really, I suppose.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Rachel began to brush her hair. “By the way, who’s this Peter Brooke who phoned you tonight? Someone at the shop?”

  “No, he’s on the Branford Evening News—a reporter. Didn’t I tell you about him? We met at that ghastly dull Dramatic Society dinner-dance that I went to with Phillip last month. Pete was reporting the speeches and he happened to be sitting next to me.”

  “Nice?” Rachel asked.

  “Not bad. Rather like Dashing Dan, as a matter of fact—but not as worldly and sure of himself. Oddly enough, his father is a doctor, too. Somewhere up in the wilds of Yorkshire, I think he said. Peter’s last job was on a country weekly, so he seems to find Branford quite a metropolis.”

  “Is he in rooms?” Rachel enquired.

  “No, he’s managed to get a flat in one of those big Victorian houses on River Walk. It’s not bad actually—I went back there for tea after we’d been to the cinema a couple of Thursdays ago. He’d suit you, my pet. He’s not one of these helpless men who can’t sew a button on. Everything was madly tidy and clean, and he doesn’t have anyone to ‘do’ for him.”

  “If he’s new to Branford, why don’t you ask him over to supper one evening?” Rachel suggested. “Or on Sunday, for lunch.”

  Carola was silent for a moment, apparently distracted by some blemish on one of her legs.

  “Oh, I don’t think I want to encourage him,” she said carelessly. “He’s quite attractive,” Carola went on, “but his job is such a nuisance. I mean he does a lot of night work—covering lectures and meetings and so on—so one can’t make definite dates. And I don’t think reporters earn much, either. When he took me to the flicks that day, we sat in the two and threes.”

  “Well, why not? There’s nothing wrong with them, is there?” Rachel asked, a shade acidly. Of late, Carola had seemed to be growing more and more materialistic in her judgment of people.

  “I thought it was a bit casual of him,” her sister answered coolly. “After all, it was our first date. It wouldn’t have killed him to fork out another five bob for the circle.”

  “Perhaps he’s saving up for something,” Rachel suggested.

  “Maybe—I wouldn’t know. Even if he is, I can’t see that it’s
an excuse for being niggardly,” Carola said coolly.

  Rachel let that pass. If she said what she thought, Carola would accuse her of ‘preaching’, and they would wind up having a battle.

  Presently—to change the subject, and because she felt a need to confide—she said, “Edward asked me to marry him tonight.”

  “What! But I thought you said you’d had a row?” Carola said perplexedly.

  “That was later on.”

  “You haven’t accepted him, have you?”

  “Not yet. The row started before we’d got to that stage.”

  “Thank goodness for that!” Carola said with relief. “Seriously, Ray, I’ve nothing against Edward as a person, but I think you’d be crazy to marry him. Being friends is one thing; being tied up for life is another matter.”

  “I think I’d like to be tied up. So why not to Edward?”

  Carola leaned against the dressing table, her lovely face unusually serious. “One: because Mrs. H. will be the world’s most abominable mother-in-law,” she stated. “Two: because you’re a much stronger, character than he is and that means you’ll end up by browbeating him. Three: because you aren’t in love with him.”

  “How do you know?” Rachel asked dryly.

  “Because you’re the type who has to be really crazy about someone for it to work,” Carola said knowledgeably.

  Rachel laid down her brush and cupped her chin in her palms. “I wish Mummy were alive,” she said wistfully. “She was so good at sorting out one’s muddles.”

  Carola echoed her sigh and for some minutes they were both silent, remembering the wise sympathy with which Angela had soothed their adolescent despairs.

  “Oh well, it’s no use brooding over the thing, I suppose,” Rachel said presently. “Let’s go to bed.” She grinned. “Perhaps I’ll have a dream which Aunt Flo can interpret as a signal from my subconscious. Incidentally, that pleasant surprise which she saw in your tea-cup last week must have been your new job. Perhaps she really does have occult powers or whatever they’re called.”