A Case of Heart Trouble (15 page)

Joanna stood smiling up at her as she ascended the stairs hurriedly.

“You’re too modest, my dear,” she observed drawlingly. “Men don't give up as easily as you appear to imagine they do when a girl’s as attractive as you are. And you are attractive, you know.

That’s why it was such a shock finding you here

acting the part of the devoted nurse to Martin. Only thankfully he’s no longer susceptible! Flattered, perhaps, by your large-eyed admiration, but not really susceptible ”

Two days later Martin Loring’s secretary telephoned to say that Dr. Loring would be with them at the weekend. Stephanie uttered a whoop of delight, Mrs. Baxter began to feel vaguely anxious about the master’s reaction when he discovered his sister-in-law was quite literally in residence, and not merely putting in a few hours a week in the studio, Dallas felt as if her whole being expanded in sudden, secret happiness, and Joanna Loring went rushing off to Oldthorpe to get her hair done.

When she returned, although she complained about the hairdresser being no good, and criticized the high gloss on her nails, she was looking so desirable that Dallas's secret happiness abated, and finally ebbed quite away. She thought it too obvious to pay a visit to the hairdresser herself, but she washed her hair and set it, paid some attention to her own nails and the finer points of her appearance, and went through her wardrobe to try to find something new to wear that Martin had not already seen.

She told herself she was not deliberately trying to attract him—or to please him; but with someone like the beautiful widow in the house she felt it undignified to allow herself to be cast utterly in the shade. Or she did until she saw Joanna emerging from her room and beginning to descend the stairs on the evening the doctor was expected.

He was driving himself, and would probably stay a few days ... or his secretary announced that he hoped to stay a few days. It had been a mild and perfect April day, and now that the sun was setting it promised to be a rarely beautiful night. The house was full of the scent of spring flowers, every piece of furniture gleamed, the Persian rugs and the lush carpet flowing throughout the house glowed in the warmth of the evening light; and although the green baize door which shut off the kitchen quarters

was securely fastened a delicate aroma of cooking— Dr. Loring’s favorite roast chicken and bread sauce, preceded by a savory soup and followed by apple pie with a large number of cloves embedded amongst the apples—added itself to the scent of flowers in the hall.

Joanna was wearing a striking short-skirted evening dress of scarlet brocade, and about her neck there was a flawless row of milky pearls. There were pearls in her ears, and her slim wrist was encircled by a pearl bracelet. Her stiletto heels were so perilously high that Mrs. Baxter’s fears for her polished floor were no doubt justified, but they lent Joanna an exquisite air of grace which caused Dallas's heart to plummet right down into the depths of her stomach when she caught sight of her for the first time.

Her own simple frock of golden silk that suited her beautifully, nevertheless, seemed absolutely ordinary by comparison with Joanna's breathtaking model. And she knew that however much time she devoted to her appearance she could never look as Joanna did. Never look half as striking as she did.

Stephanie had been allowed to stay up to welcome her father, and she, too, was wearing something in the nature of a party frock. She skipped up and down the hall while they waited for the car to draw up outside, and when at last it did she and Joe became so entangled with one another that they practically caused an accident as they tumbled down the steps.

Martin looked slightly amazed by such a pageant of feminine beauty waited for him in the hall. He had been expecting to see Dallas, and perhaps Stephanie ... the latter being firmly restrained by the paid companion, who would never forget what she was paid to do even when welcoming the master of the place back to his own. But he had certainly not expected to see Joanna, smiling at him under white eyelids touched with a misty mauve eye shadow, and edged with long mascaraed eyelashes, or hear her urging on his daughter with the words:

“Go on, darling, let him see we’re all delighted to have him back! Give him a tremendous hug for the lot of us! ” as if she was the mistress of the house with a right to talk about hugs and the delight of seeing him back.

“Well, well! ” Martin exclaimed, when he had extricated himself from his daughter’s suffocating embrace. He put his head on one side, and regarded them with a somewhat peculiar expression on his face. “Who would have expected to see you here, Joanna! ”

“Darling, I thought I’d give you a little surprise.” She advanced a trifle to greet him, putting out a slender white hand with just a touch of diffidence. “Aggie’s got the builders in, and she had to turn me out for a while. I knew you simply wouldn't hear of my putting myself to the expense of going to an hotel, so I worked on Mrs. Baxter until she consented to let me have a room. And now I’m here indefinitely ... or until, you, too, turf me out!” Her brilliant eyes challenged him. she seemed to be waiting breathlessly with soft, parted lips, half fearful that she had presumed just a shade too far, half confident that she could never do that. And when at last he smiled a little crookedly she gave vent to a sigh of open relief.

“Darling, I knew you’d understand! I knew you could never be harsh—to me!”

He turned away to greet Dallas, but it seemed to her that the pleasure that had been on his face when he ascended the steps had vanished. Or it had vanished when he turned to her.

“Hello, Nurse,” he greeted her, almost casually. “How have you and the infant been getting on? Steve looks as if she ought to be back at school being well spanked for putting up a shameless pretense. I’d say she’s as fit as any child of her age I’ve ever encountered! And you look very fit, too. Does it mean you’re also feeling very fit?”

“Yes, thank you very much,” Dallas replied. “The weather has been marvellous, and we've taken advantage of it.”

“Good,” he said. Joanna slipped a hand inside his arm and led him to the drawing-room door.

“I didn’t know Nurse Drew had been under the weather before she came back here,” she remarked, with a slight compression of the beautiful mouth. “Is it because you’re a doctor that you take pity on people who look fragile and in need of a little care? I don’t know that I approve of that when it’s your own daughter who has to be taken charge of. Surely someone terribly fit, who could romp with her and not coddle her, was the answer to what you needed?” He glanced at her with an enigmatic expression in his handsome grey eyes, and all he replied was: “Well, in this case it seems to have worked. Both patients have recovered remarkably, and that proves I’m a good doctor.”

There was a tray of drinks on a side table, and he helped them to whatever they asked for. Dallas would have preferred nothing at all, but he insisted on putting a glass of sherry into her hand. She felt that already she had been put into her place by Joanna, who didn’t hesitate to discuss her as if she herself wasn’t present, and the thought that she could go on doing this—and almost certainly would now that she was an accepted occupant of the house —depressed her to such an extent that she hardly looked forward to the remainder of the evening, or the full duration of the doctor’s visit.

The dinner—so beautifully cooked by Mrs. Baxter, and served by Edith—fell a little flat, although Joanna certainly did it full justice. Martin Loring might have been tired after his journey, for his appetite seemed poor, and Dallas would have preferred to be having her dinner upstairs on a tray with Stephanie.

As it was, as soon as the meal was over, and they returned to the drawing-room—and Joanna settled down behind the coffee tray to pour the coffee as if it was her right as a sort of deputy hostess—she excused herself on the grounds that she would like to have a look at Stephanie and make certain that she was settling down to sleep, and Joanna suggested airily that if she had something else to do she needn’t return to the drawing-room.

“I mean,” Joanna explained, with an enchanting display of her small white teeth, “that you might have some letters to write, or something of the sort. We’ll forgive you if you’d rather stay upstairs, and you can give an account of the past three weeks to Dr. Loring in the morning. I’m sure he’ll want to know how you’ve been occupying your time, but not tonight.”

Martin turned his head and looked at Dallas. He was lying back in a damask-covered armchair, and his eyes had a sort of a screen over them—a faintly weary screen.

“Are you tired, Nurse?” he asked, as if he was merely being polite.

“N-no. Well, yes I am, as a matter of fact,” Dallas answered untruthfully, quite certain that they neither of them ardently wished her to return to the drawing-room.

“Well then, I should go to bed,” he said, and concentrated his attention to Joanna, who was offering him his coffee cup.

Joanna smiled even more sweetly at Dallas, said jokingly that she promised they wouldn’t discuss her behind her back—and Dallas had an uneasy idea what she meant by that—and then curled herself up like a luxurious kitten in the lap of a huge settee, with her coffee cup beside her on an occasional table, and looked as if she was prepared to have a really relaxed and enjoyable evening.

The picture Dallas carried away with her of the two of them as she mounted the stairs to her room was that of a tired but now equally relaxed man who had journeyed from London that day, and was now back in his own beautiful home with a fantastically beautiful woman near to him who was part of his rightful background, and therefore might very easily become a part of his life.

A part of his future, at any rate . . . and a very important part!

C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N

DALLAS and Stephanie were the first down to breakfast in the morning. Dr. Loring joined them as they were folding up their napkins in preparation for leaving the room, and Joanna came in as he was helping himself from the various dishes on the sideboard.

Joanna—who normally breakfasted on orange juice and a cigarette in her room—also helped herself from the side dishes, and explained brightly to Dallas that the doctor had been complaining that she was too thin, and that she ought to eat more.

“So I’m going to take his advice and start filling out a little.” She smiled at Martin. “But only a little, because apparently he doesn’t like fat women any more than he likes thin.”

But Martin Loring was not in a mood to be drawn on the subject of women. There was a deep and very noticeable frown between his brows as he concentrated on pouring himself some coffee, and he said to

Dallas, as she made for the door:

“I’d like to have a word with you. Nurse Drew, if you can spare me the time after breakfast.” The extreme formality of his tone startled Dallas so much that she paused and regarded him in anxiety, But he was not looking up at her and he didn't see the alarm that flashed into her eyes. “I’ll be in the library from ten o’clock onwards, so please will you join me there as soon as you can manage it.”

“Oh, dear,” said Joanna, spearing a mushroom on the end of her fork, “I thought we were going in to Oldthorpe this morning. It’s a beautiful morning, and you said last night that we'd leave here about eleven o’clock. I was hoping you’d stand me lunch at the George.”

“We’ll go in to Oldthorpe as soon as Nurse Drew and I have had a talk,” Martin replied, but he didn't say whether he was likely to stand Nurse Drew and his daughter lunch at the George. From his tone Dallas gathered that, if the party was increased, it was Stephanie only who would be allowed to add to the numbers.

So she was not in the least surprised when, on her way to the library at a quarter past ten, she cannoned into Stephanie, who was racing back along the corridor which led to the library, and on her way upstairs, and told that she had just received instruction to make herself presentable and join her father and Mrs. Loring for the trip to Oldthorpe.

“We’re to have lunch at the George,” the child exclaimed excitedly, dancing from one foot to the other. “I’ve never had lunch at the George before— only tea at the Copper Kettle, which isn’t a bit like it, is it?— and I’m to put on my best dress and coat so that Daddy and Aunt Joanna won’t be ashamed of me.”

Almost immediately afterwards it occurred to her that Dallas might not be joining them, and she asked doubtfully:

“Do you think you'll be coming, too? Daddy didn’t say you would, but you always came with us when he was here before, didn't you? I mean, you were never left behind! ”

Dallas smiled down into the small, concerned face, and reminded her that when her father was there before there had been only the three of them.

“He probably thinks that three’s a number he can cope with; but four would be much more like a crowd. Run along, darling, and put on your blue pleated skirt and the jumper that goes with it, and don’t forget to change your shoes. And make certain you’ve got a clean handkerchief! ”

Stephanie ran off obediently, but only after she had protested that she would much prefer it if Dallas was going with them—“Aunt Joanna will forget all about me and talk to Daddy all the time! ” she declared shrewdly—and Dallas turned her about and assured her that she

appreciated being wanted.

“But I'll be here when you get back, and you'll be able to tell me everything. All about everything you had for lunch, and the way you behaved. And don’t forget your father doesn't see very much of you, so you mustn’t let him down. It must be your best behavior throughout the whole of the morning!”

When she knocked on the library door she was, feeling a little breathless, as if she had been running. The doctor called to her to come in, and she found him pacing up and down the room and looking very thoughtful. He was wearing country clothes, and they became him wonderfully, she thought—particularly the pale primrose sweater under the tweed hacking jacket.

“Sit down. Nurse.” He pushed a chair towards her without looking at her. “Mrs. Loring and I are taking Stephanie in to Oldthorpe with us this morning. We thought it would be a change for her.” He still did not look at Dallas. “I’m sure you understand that it isn't always possible to include a—well, an employee—in what is actually a family party.”