Lucy Lamb Doctor's Wife

by Sara Seale

  “But Madame is enchanting—ravissante! Is it not a marvel what a good gown will do?” cried Gaston naively, but his bright little eyes held the unstinting appreciation of his race.

  “I would never have believed it!” Smithers exclaimed with unflattering honesty, but even his eyes held a grudging admiration and he could not resist fingering the folds of Lucy’s skirt with inquisitive fingers.

  “Well, we make a handsome couple, wouldn’t you say, Gaston?” Paul said jauntily. “Give them something to talk about in St. Minver, for a change, eh?”

  “No doubt, m’sieur,” Gaston replied politely, and Lucy realized, in some surprise, that the Frenchman did not care for Pierre’s young tutor.

  “Well, do you think we should be going?” she said a little awkwardly, but there came loud shrieks from the landing above and Pierre came racing down the stairs in his pyjamas.

  “Baba! Baba! You p-promised to let me see you all dressed up!” he shouted, his voice shrill with angry reproach.

  She caught him to her with remorseful fondness.

  “But, darling, you were asleep,” she said. “I didn’t want to disturb you. We tried it on this morning, so you could see—don’t you remember?”

  “It wasn’t the same, it wasn’t the same,” the boy stormed, and his face contorted into the preliminary warning grimace of tears.

  “Oh, lord!” Paul exclaimed disgustedly, “Don’t let’s have a scene at this juncture. Go back to bed at once, Pierre, and don’t behave like a baby.”

  “It is natural that the little one should wish to behold madame on such an occasion,” Gaston observed smoothly, and Lucy said quickly:

  “See, Pierre, you shall admire, too. Look how the skirt flies out when I whirl round, and my shoes are silver and shiny like Cinderella’s slipper. That’s what’ I feel like, Pierre—Cinderella going to the ball.”

  Pierre was instantly diverted.

  “You look beautiful, Baba. Will you be turned into a pumpkin at twelve o’clock?” he said solemnly.

  “No, of course not,” she laughed. “And you’ve got it wrong, you know. It was the pumpkin that was turned into a coach, not Cinderella.”

  “If we don’t get going, the coach, such as it is, will probably turn back into a pumpkin,” said Paul a little sourly. “Do as you’re told, Pierre, and go back to bed.”

  “No,” said Lucy, with new-found assurance. “He shall have a party, too. Gaston will find you something good to eat in the kitchen when we have gone, poppet, and Smithers, perhaps, will tell you a story, won’t you, Smithers?”

  “You bet!” said Smithers, forgetting himself and winking, and the cook swung the child up on to his shoulder.

  “Madame has the understanding—and the wisdom,” he observed with a smug look in Paul’s direction. “A pleasant evening, madame—helas that m’sieur should be chopping up the patient—that has not much gaiety, hein?”

  Paul seemed a little sulky as they drove into St. Minver, but Lucy was scarcely aware of it. She had been admired and the May night was full of stars. She became aware, for the first time, of the beauty of the moor by moonlight and, for no logical reason, had a desire to be in another county and knit a left garter about a right-legged stocking.

  The dance was held in the town’s principal hotel, and as Paul parked the car, his good humor returned. He was well aware of his own good looks, and he was going to enjoy a lavish evening at his cousin’s expense and the mild sensation he would undoubtedly cause in acting escort to the bride no one had yet seen. He was soon aware, if Lucy was not, of the discreet stares and whispers which followed them through the evening. After seven years’ eccentric seclusion, Bart’s sudden re-marriage had been a nine days’ wonder, no doubt, and after tonight, Paul thought with pleasure, the old trouts would have something fresh to gossip about. It was really rather stupid, though highly typical of the great Bartlemy Travers, not to have put in an appearance, just for the look of things.

  For Lucy, after the initial nervousness that so many curious eyes inspired in her, the evening was sheer delight. Paul was a charming and attentive escort, and even when her inexperienced feet trod on his toes, he rallied her with outrageous compliments. He introduced her to no one and she scarcely realized he was flirting with her with practised skill, and his open admiration, like the unaccustomed champagne, went a little to her head.

  Mary Morgan, dowdy but authoritatively impressive in purple crepe, came over to sit at their table for a short while. She spoke to Paul with civility but no liking, and made it plain, without actually saying so, that since Lucy’s husband was unable to accompany her, she should have stayed at home. She left them shortly, aware that she had merely added to the young man’s amusement and spoilt Lucy’s innocent enjoyment, but she was angry with Bart. The consultant from Bristol had been late arriving, but the operation, she knew for a fact, had been postponed until the morning. He should have put in an appearance for the look of things, or at least not to have deputed that good-looking, worthless young cousin of his to take his place upon an occasion so closely connected with his hospital. It was, she thought, with annoyance, making it rather too patently clear that his second marriage was one of convenience and his wife a little nobody he had picked up at random. But as she looked across to Lucy’s table, Mary sighed with fresh irritation. The child did not look a nobody in that exquisite frock, with her slender limbs and the delicate bones of her flushed, eager face. She looked what she was supposed to be, a young bride of whom any man might be proud, and she could see the same thought in the eyes of Bart’s colleagues as they tentatively sought for introductions.

  “She thinks I shouldn’t have come,” Lucy was saying uneasily to Paul, but he only laughed and made the shape of a kiss with his lips across the table.

  “Don’t let that old trout worry you,” he said. “It’s common knowledge she’s had a soft spot for Bart for years. She’s probably jealous.”

  “What nonsense! Bart and Matron are old friends; he’s often told me so.”

  “Need that stop the lady from having a crush on him?”

  “Yes. She’s not that sort of woman. Bart has a great respect for her, and so have I.”

  He recognized the touch of distaste in her voice and smiled at her with contrite charm.

  “You’re probably right, my sweet,” he said. “And will you bite my head off if I say that I’m in agreement with her over one thing? Bart should be here; if I was married to you, Lucy, I wouldn’t allow you to gallivant around with another man.”

  She flushed, not knowing quite how to deal with this observation, and he put a hand impulsively on one of hers.

  “You have a dangerous attraction, Lucy Locket—dangerous because it is unconscious and so shatteringly sincere. Did you know that?” he said, but Lucy was not listening.

  Over the heads of the dancers she had seen Bart standing just inside the door, and she felt the color rush into her cheeks. The band stopped playing at that moment and almost at once he saw her. She had risen to her feet and he began to walk leisurely across the room towards her. “Damn!” said Paul.

  She was unaware that people watched them. She held out her hands to him and he took them for a moment as he reached her.

  “After all I was able to make it. The operation was postponed till the morning,” he said prosaically, but his eyes ran over her with a strange expression that held both tenderness and a faint bewilderment.

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” she said, her own eyes darkening as the pupils suddenly dilated. “Now the evening’s complete.”

  “That’s very charming of you. Hasn’t Paul been a good deputy?” He spoke lightly, but his glance still travelled over her curiously.

  “He’s been delightful,” she replied quickly, “but after all, it’s really your party.”

  He stood there, smiling down at her with one quizzical eyebrow raised. The tail coat, the carnation, the discreet opulence of links and studs all added to his air of distinction, thought Paul resentfully in
the background. He looked just what he was, a successful man at the top of his profession, commanding as his right, respect, and, from many, admiration.

  They were still standing when the band started playing again and, with a smile, Bart invited her to dance.

  “I haven’t performed for years, so you’ll have to make allowances for me,” he said as he put an arm round her.

  “And I,” said Lucy, “have hardly danced at all. I shall probably tread on your toes.”

  “Then that makes two of us,” he replied, and swung her on to the floor.

  At first she was nervous, but he was skilled, more skilled than Paul, she realized, and he directed her where he willed. For a fleeting instant she compared herself with the unknown Marcelle who would, of course, have danced beautifully, then she gave herself up to the unfamiliar pleasure of being held close to her husband, to feel the tightening pressure of his hand on her bare flesh.

  “I don’t know you tonight, Lucy Baa-lamb,” he said, looking down at her. “You are rather ravishing in that white bridal gown, do you know that?”

  “I haven’t really thanked you for the dress,” she replied with some confusion, “and for the loan of your beautiful pearls.”

  “They’re a gift, not a loan,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes! They become you very well. Have you met any of this crowd yet?”

  “No, only Matron. I think she was a little annoyed.”

  “She was indeed,” he countered dryly. “I’ve already had a piece of her mind! When this dance is over I’ll introduce you to some of the more respectable members of my fraternity.”

  The rest of the evening passed like a dream for Lucy, and she felt indeed that at any minute the clock would strike twelve and she find herself in rags, though it must already be long past midnight. She could not remember the names of the people she met, only the eyes of the women flirting with Bart and the pleasing, if staid, compliments of, the men bestowed on herself.

  When they finally got back to their table, it was to find Paul gone and a hastily scrawled note for Bart saying he would go straight home and pick up his clothes tomorrow.

  “Oh, dear!” said Lucy, her tender heart distressed that after all his kindness he should feel neglected. “He gave me such a happy evening, too.”

  “Did he, indeed?” Bart said, making a spill of Paul’s note and lighting a cigarette with it. “I’m told the uninitiated took you both for a honeymoon couple. Paul was evidently very obvious with his attentions.”

  “Was he?” she said, looking surprised. “Yes, perhaps he was, but he was only being kind.”

  His eyebrows rose and he lazily blew a cloud of smoke between them.

  “You don’t look, tonight, like a young woman to whom a man would feel impelled to be kind,” he observed. “You’ve had quite a success, Lucy. Now, I suppose, we’ll have all these well-meaning wives calling and arranging parties for us.”

  She looked at him doubtfully.

  “But you wouldn’t care for that?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Then I shouldn’t, either. Pierre fills my days.”

  He smiled and touched her hand with affection.

  “Dear Lucy,” he said softly, “you’re resolved to stick to your side of the bargain, aren’t you? Well, we shall have to see. In the meantime, this sounds to me like the last dance. Come along.”

  It was still like a dream, driving home in the starlight. Bart drove with his usual recklessness, but at the headland turn to Polvane he paused and let his engine idle. The smell of the sea came sharply on the night air, and only the sound of the rolling breakers broke the stillness.

  “What a night!” he said. “Is there something in the May Day ghosts, do you suppose?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered sleepily. “I only know that, for me, this has been a wonderful evening.”

  They drove on, and Lucy remembered the splendor of the rhododendrons when first she had come to Polvane. Now the giant flowers were withering and only the dark, glossy leaves made a tunnel over their heads, but soon, she thought, the flowers that Abel had planted would blossom and there would be something of her own to bring into the house.

  Upstairs, in her room, the fire had been kept in and a thermos stood on the table by the bed and a plate of sandwiches. A routine matter in a well-ordered household, she supposed, but she liked to think that Gaston or Smithers had thought of her. She kicked off her shoes, twirled happily round the room without them, and began to wrestle with the zip fastener of her frock.

  “Bart!” she called, still under the spell of the evening. He opened the door between their rooms.

  “What is it?”

  “Will you un-zip me, please?”

  He watched her peeling off her stockings as if he had not been there, and, picking up the discarded shoes, set them, meticulously, side by side.

  “Who zipped you into this contraption?” he asked, his fingers feeling for the catch.

  “Paul.”

  “Paul?”

  “I couldn’t bear the thought of Smithers’ fingers—silly, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and ran the zip fastener down with a gesture which could hardly be called gentle.

  “Thank you,” she said, and turned to face him, holding the dress to her shoulders.

  He surveyed her inscrutably and said, suddenly:

  “What is that song you sing to Pierre—the one he said was like you?”

  “ ‘Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow’,” she said, and to her their conversation did not seem at all strange.

  “Sing it now,” he said, and, because the evening still held magic, and Bart himself seemed a different person, she stood there, the white frock held against her shoulders, and sang:

  “Have you seen but a whyte lillie grow

  before rude hands had touched it;

  Have you mark’t but the fall of the snow

  before the earth hath smutch’t it—

  Smutched—smitched—it’s the same meaning, isn’t it?” she broke off to say. “I mean about the lamps smitching.”

  “Very likely. How does it go on?”

  She sang the rest of the little air, aware of his cool eyes watching her, and faltered on the last line.

  “Yes, it’s like you,” he said, and turned towards the open door between their two rooms.

  “Bart—” she said, aware that in this moment the initiative could lie with her—“will you come back and tuck me in? It’s been—it’s been such a lovely evening.”

  “Very well,” he replied, and returned to his own room. When he came back she was in bed. Her clothes were strewn about the room, where she had dropped them in happy inconsequence. He picked them up and laid them carefully over a chair, then came and stood by the bed, looking down at her.

  “Thank you,” she said, and thought how tall and strange he seemed in his dressing gown.

  “What for?”

  “My lovely evening, the frock and the pearls and—for coming yourself, after all.”

  She looked very small in the big bed with her arms stretched above her head; he could see a small pulse beating in the hollow at her throat.

  “If it pleased you, then I’m glad,” he said a little formally, and she suddenly stretched out her arms to him.

  “Will you—will you kiss me goodnight, Bart?” she asked. “You—you’ve never kissed me—not that I’ve expected you to,” she added hurriedly.

  “Why not? I married you, didn’t I?” he replied, and bent over the bed.

  His eyes might be cold but his lips were warm against hers. In some unchartered fashion, she knew again, that the moment could be of her making, but she had no knowledge, no certainty, to turn him from that other dead love.

  “Thank you,” she said, resisting the desire to touch him. “Could you—could we—make it a habit, do you suppose—like tucking Pierre in for the night?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he repl
ied with a strange expression. “Goodnight, Lucy, and sleep well.”

  He was gone, and the door closed between them. She blew out her lamp and, almost immediately, fell asleep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I

  BART had left to perform the operation which had been postponed the night before, long before Lucy was awake the next morning. She propped herself up on her pillows and blinked happily at the bright light of a May morning which Smithers let into the room as he drew the curtains. “Did you enjoy the ball, madam?” he asked in his most cultured voice.

  “It was wonderful,” she said, stretching her arms lazily above her head. “Mr. Travers came after all, you know.”

  “Of course.” She glanced at him uncertainly. He was, really, a very strange creature.

  “Gaston and I—we didn’t care to see you going off with young Mr. Paul,” he said. “You looked, if I may say so, just like a bride in that beautiful gown. Mr. Paul did not return?”

  “No,” said Lucy absently. “He’s picking up his clothes this morning—oh, I’d forgotten, it’s Saturday. He won’t be here till Monday, then.”

  “No madam,” Smithers said, and his lined, sallow face looked pleased.

  Suddenly, for Lucy, he was no longer Bart’s manservant, resentful and critical of her actions. He was a fellow human being, peculiar, possibly, but as vulnerable and unsure as herself.

  “Smithy—” she began impulsively, then coloured and looked abashed—“I beg your pardon—Smithers. It’s easy to get into Pierre’s ways.”

  His old face creased in a hundred wrinkles, and she realized that it was the first time she had seen him really smile.

  “I would esteem it an honour if you care to address me as Smithy,” he said grandly, then, cracking his finger-joints with sudden violent agitation, added in quite a different tone of voice and forgetting his grammar: “I would like to say, miss—madam—Gaston and me find you very easy, which we did not expect, and if we give offence when you first come, we’re sorry for it. The first Mrs. Travers was such a very different lady, you see.”