The Door Between (3 page)

“Don’t be a child,” he said soothingly. “Sit down and take off your shoes and stockings.”

“I’ll do nothing of the kind!” gasped Eva, surprised out of her dignity.

“Take ’em off!” growled the large young man with sudden menace.

Eva found herself the next moment deposited on the stone lip of the pool beside the little bridge, obeying instructions. She thought she must be dreaming.

“Now,” said Dr. Scott briskly, squatting beside her. “Let’s see. Ah! Lovely legs. Lovely feet. Lovely arches – I see they haven’t fallen yet. They will … Put ’em in the pool please.”

For all her secret misery and confusion Eva began to enjoy the situation; it was mad and romantic, like something out of a fluffy book. He
was
a rather unusual doctor, she admitted grudgingly to herself; the reports hadn’t at all exaggerated.

“Lovely,” repeated Dr. Scott thoughtfully.

Eva was astounded to feel a jealous pang. He had done this sort of nonsensical thing before, that was it; that was most definitely it. It was part of his professional technique. A society doctor! Eva sniffed, losing some of the enjoyment. She knew all about
them
from Dr. MacClure. Clever young men who got by on personality, the bedside manner. Parasites, Dr. MacClure called them. Handsome, of course, preying on the weaknesses of silly females. They were a menace to society; Eva felt that quite beyond argument.

She would show
him
. Thought he’d caught another fish, did he? Dr. MacClure’s daughter! No doubt it would be good advertising, hanging in his office like a – like a pelt … Eva was just about to snatch up her stockings when she was shocked to feel him grasp her ankles firmly and splash them into the pool.

“Lovely,” said Dr. Scott again, absently.

The coolness of the water enveloped her bare feet, spreading up her legs over her heated skin.

“Cool?” asked Dr. Scott, still absently.

Eva was outraged at herself. All that came out of her mouth was a meek: “Well – yes.”

Dr. Scott roused himself, shaking off what seemed to be a thought. “That’s fine! Now, young woman, you answer some personal questions.”

Eva stiffened instantly; but the water felt so pleasant she relaxed the next moment, furious with herself.

He nodded, quite as if he had expected it. “Hot feet, short tempers. And vice-versa. Infallible remedy in warm weather.”

“Is this the usual preparation for an examination, Dr. Scott?” asked Eva tartly.

“What?”

“I mean – do you have a pool in your office, too? What do you do for a moon?”

“Oh,” said Dr. Scott, a little blankly.

“I suppose,” sighed Eva, wriggling her toes with pleasure, “this is what comes of eating
suki-yaki
, or whatever it is.”

Dr. Scott gazed at her oddly. Then he roused himself again and said: “You see, we must suspect many causes when a young female gets suicidal impulses.” He sat down beside her on the cement. “How old are you?”

“No chart?” asked Eva.

“What?”

“Twenty,” said Eva docilely.

“Digestion?”

“Quite.”

“Appetite?”

“Until recently,” said Eva darkly, “I ate like a sow.”

Dr. Scott surveyed her straight back, smooth arms, and cleanly moulded figure, a little lambent with moonlight. “Hmm,” he said. “That’s refreshing. Most refreshing.”

Eva smiled in the silver darkness. Most of her friends warred constantly on the common enemy of appetite, keeping two worried eyes on their scales.

“How much do you weigh?” continued Dr. Scott, still surveying.

“One-eighteen,” said Eva, adding wickedly, “stripped.”

“Well, Well Get plenty of exercise?”

“Only the horse gets more.”

“Any faintness on rising in the morning – ache in your bones?”

“Goodness, no.”

“Notice any lapses of memory – difficulty in concentrating?”

“Not a bit,” said Eva demurely, and the next instant she was angry with herself again. Being demure! What was the matter with her? She compressed her lips.

“Nothing wrong with your metabolism, apparently. Sleep well?”

Eva yelped, snatching her feet from the pool. A goldfish had nibbled, not unnaturally, at the bait of a wriggling toe. Eva steeled herself and slipped her feet back in the water.

“Like the dead,” she said firmly.

“Dream much?” asked Dr. Scott, pretending not to have noticed.

“A good deal,” said Eva. “But don’t ask me what I dream about because I won’t tell you.”

“You have already,” said Dr. Scott dryly. “Well, let’s see. Get the patient’s own diagnosis. Often helpful in psychiatric cases – can’t see anything physical at the moment. What do
you
think’s the matter with you?”

Eva drew her legs out of the pool definitely, tucking them in and inspecting the young man with frigidity.

“Now, please, don’t be difficult. You misunderstood. I was rehearsing the lines of a – a play I’m giving next week for my settlement children.”

“‘I wish I were dead ,’” repeated Dr. Scott reflectively. “A little morbid for the tots, I should think.”

Their eyes locked; and after a while Eva turned back to the hungry little gullets in the pool, feeling hot and cold in alarmingly rapid alternations.

“All this piffle about when goldfish sleep,” drawled the large young man. “Don’t give me
that
. Have you any women-friends to speak of?”

“Mobs,” said Eva stiffly.

“For instance? I think I know some of your crowd.”

“Well, there’s Karen,” said Eva, desperately trying to think of someone different.

“Nonsense. She’s not a woman. She’s a cloud! And twice as old as you, too.”

“I don’t like women any more.”

“How about men?”

“I
hate
men!”

Dr. Scott whistled, as if a great light had fallen. He lay back on the grass skirting the lip of the pool, resting his head on his palms. “Restless, eh?” he remarked to the dappled sky.

“Sometimes.”

“Cramps in your legs occasionally, as if you’d like to kick somebody?”

“Why –!”

“Kids at the settlement suddenly get on your nerves?”

“I didn’t say –”

“Dream things you’re ashamed of? Yes, I know that.”

“I never said –”

“Moony over picture-stars – Howard, the Gable menace?”

“Dr. Scott!”

“And of course,” said Dr. Scott, nodding at the moon, “you inspect yourself in the mirror rather oftener than usual these days, too.”

Eva was so startled she began to cry: “How did you – ?” but then bit her lip and felt terribly ashamed, really undressed. How could
any one
ever marry a doctor? she asked herself fiercely. It must be horrible living with a – with a human stethoscope who knew what made you tick. It was true. Everything he had said was true. It was all so true and so embarrassing Eva hated him. She had never thought she could hate anyone quite so much as she hated him. It was bad enough having an old doctor strip your sacred secrets from you, but a young one … She had heard he was only a little past thirty. How could he have any
respect
…

“How did I know?” said Dr. Scott dreamily from the grass; she felt his eyes burn on her naked shoulders – at least, one spot between her shoulder-blades tingled. “Why, it’s just biology. It’s what makes babies possible.”

“You’re – simply – horrid!” cried Eva.

“A stunner like you. Spring – twenty – she hates men she says … Oh, my aunt!”

Eva furtively inspected herself in the water. Something was happening to her inside – a little boiling area in the region of the diaphragm, hot and jumpy.

“Never been in love, of course,” murmured Dr. Scott.

Eva sprang to her bare feet. “Now I
am
going!”

“Ah, touched the nerve. Sit down.” Eva sat down. That boiling was the most curious thing. She knew she was miserable, and naturally he was the most insufferable creature; yet the area was spreading to her chest and it was beginning to make breathing difficult. “Well, that’s what you need. That’s what you want. Dr. Scott’s prescription for young females. Love, or whatever it is you women call it. Do you good.”

“Goodbye,” said Eva, almost in tears. But she did not go.

“Trouble with you,” said Dr. Scott, and in the queerest way she knew he was looking at the back of her head, “is that you’ve been smothered by your environment. Brains, genius, fame – all around you, keeping you down. Get yourself a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of new duds and a husband, and you’ll never feel another ache or pain.”

The most stifling silence fell. It was not at all the kind of silence that falls between physicians and patients. But then physicians rarely conduct moonlight examinations of young females in Japanese gardens near water.

What was even more peculiar was Eva’s sudden feeling that she was no longer a patient. As if his self-assurance had passed over to her, leaving her full of strength and him a little empty … It came like a stroke of lightning. One moment the Japanese cicadas had been scratching away, and the next the world turned upside down. Inside the despair of months was magically gone, dissolved in the boiling spot that now churned her whole body.

It was peculiar, too, that now the young man was silent she wished she might hear his voice again; and at the same time she was conscious of a wonderful power that said he might speak, but because of her it would be a different tone.

Eva had never experienced a dangerous moment before. But she knew instinctively that this was such a moment, and that danger was the pleasantest thing she had ever tasted.

She heard him breathing on the grass behind her, breathing rather harder than a physician should. And she was glad; and all at once in a freeing gush happy, for she knew that the wonderful power was a power women feel at certain moments with certain men, a power she had never felt with any one before.

And she held him in the palm of her hand; she knew that calmly, although he lay beside her and her back was straight and inscrutable to him. She knew that she had only to turn around to make something sweet and impossible happen.

But now that she had her moment, she felt an irresistible urge to hold it at bay. She began slowly and deliberately, back still turned to him, to pull her discarded stockings on to her legs. He did not move. Then she slipped her shoes on, concentrating on the task. The fireflies flickered in and out of sight. The voices were planets away. The gulps in the pool punctuated everything – the silence, the strain, the sweet hostility.

Physician!

And Eva rose lazily and only then did she turn and look at him, knowing how nice she must appear with her slender figure twisted at the waist in its sheath of voile. But now she was above him, and he had to look up at her slim height, cool and amused and inwardly trembling. Eva felt like a lady-knight triumphant over the body of a dragon; and she suppressed a giggle and an impulse to put her foot on his chest.

But she felt like doing a mad thing. She had never felt quite so strong and irresponsible before.

“Well, you’re the doctor,” she said, looking down at him.

He stared up at her with wide-open man’s eyes, curiously a little angry. The moment stood still; she could almost feel his arms hard and convulsed about her, with the garden spinning and sound and life and darkness dropped off the edge of consciousness. She even relished the taste of his anger, joyful in her knowledge that she had surprised his defenses … She could see his body contract, getting ready to spring up from the grass.

“Eva!” roared Dr. MacClure’s voice.

Eva went cold all over. Dr. Scott scrambled to his feet and began brushing himself off in a futile, powerful way.

“Oh, there you are,” growled Dr. MacClure, stamping across the bridge. Then he caught sight of the young man and stopped short. Eva stood between them, clutching her handkerchief.

The coldness vanished and the happiness with its boiling returned. Eva could have laughed aloud between the two men looking each other over, the middle-aged one inspecting the young one with his remarkable sharp light blue eyes, and the young one returning the inspection half-truculently.

“This is Dr. Richard Barr Scott, daddy,” said Eva composedly.

“Ha,” said Dr. MacClure.

Dr. Scott mumbled: “’Dyado,” and put his hands into his pockets. Eva knew that he was very angry indeed, and was very glad.

“Heard of you,” grunted Dr. MacClure.

“Good of you,” scowled Dr. Scott.

And already they measured each other, potential antagonists, and Eva was so happy she felt faint.

And so, if life began for Karen Leith at forty, and for Dr. MacClure at fifty-three, it began for Eva MacClure at twenty, in the romantic setting of Karen Leith’s garden-party in May.

Eva grew, she burgeoned; she became a woman fulfilled overnight, complete and self-assured. All her problems dropped away like useless leaves.

The joy of the hunt obsessed her. She threw herself into the ancient game as if she had been playing it for years – a game in which the huntress stood still, and the prey came seeking its doom, helplessly. Dr. MacClure was not the only physician in New York to be confused; young Dr. Scott actually grew haggard.

They were engaged in June.

“There’s only one thing, daddy,” said Eva to Dr. MacClure shortly after. It was a sweltering night, and they were in Karen’s garden. “It’s about me and Richard.”

“What’s the matter?” demanded Dr. MacClure.

Eva stared at her hands. “I wonder if I ought to tell him – you know, that you and I …”

Dr. MacClure looked heavily at her; he seemed more than usually tired these days, and he had aged considerably. Then he said: “Yes, Eva?”

Eva was troubled. “That you’re not really my father. It doesn’t seem right not to tell him, but –”

Dr. MacClure sat still. Karen, beside him, murmured: “Don’t be a fool, Eva. What good can it do?” Somehow, in her flowered frock, with her hair combed tightly back, Karen seemed older, her advice sounder.

“I don’t know, Karen. It just doesn’t –”

“Eva,’ said Dr. MacClure in the gentle voice no one but his two women had ever heard. He took her hands in his own, engulfing them. “You know, darling, that I couldn’t love you more if you were my own daughter.’