Charlotte rose at once to the situation. She smiled at Dr. Mackay as if she was only faintly amused by his rather appealing transparency, and agreed that there was little more they could do for their patient that night. But he would be the first to disapprove of them leaving him alone in the house, and she suggested that Hannah took advantage of the opportunity to stretch her legs… despite the fact that it had been Hannah who was the strong advocate of taking the weight off their feet.
“It’s wonderful in the garden at this hour,” she said. “But if you feel like going further… say a visit to the Three Sailors, I shan’t mind,” she assured them.
Hannah fairly beamed at her.
“You really mean that?” she asked.
“Of course. And don’t forget, there is a man in the house… even if he isn’t quite clear about who he is at the moment! ”
While Hannah rushed off to change and make herself look as attractive as possible for the unexpected treat ahead of her, Dr. Mackay accepted a drink from Charlotte, and sat on the end of a settee while he drank it.
“I am off duty to-night,” he admitted, “and if the alcohol content of this glass of sherry upsets the balance of my blood Hannah can take over the wheel of the car and drive us to the village.”
“I’m afraid it’s not very good sherry,” Charlotte apologised. She started to wander up and down over the pearl-grey carpets. “Dr. Mackay! ” she said suddenly.
;Yes?” He smiled at her, secretly agreeing with her about the quality of the sherry but far too naturally polite to make comments on it aloud. “Anything I can do for you?” he wanted to know.
“Not me, precisely.” She seemed to hesitate. “Dr. Mackay…”
“I’m at your service if you want anything, you know,” he told her affably. “Even if it’s free advice. But as you look extremely healthy and charming to me, I’m sure it’s not that.”
“No, I – ” She picked up a porcelain ginger jar, and then put it back again. “It’s about Mr. Tremarth! He seems to be making quite a good recovery, but I’m a little puzzled about – about his amnesia. He remembers some things, but not others. He doesn’t even remember that he became engaged to be married shortly before he met with his accident! ”
The doctor smiled humorously.
“Perhaps he regretted becoming engaged as soon as he’d committed himself, and now he’s particularly vague on that point because he’d get out of it if he could – and he hadn’t all the right gentlemanly instincts!
“But the young woman in question is quite lovely_”
“Yes. I saw her in the village about ten o’clock this morning.”
“And you – you do agree that she’s – extremely attractive?”
Dr. Mackay smiled suddenly and more broadly. He set down his glass on a little occasional table, and then rose and walked across to her and patted her on the shoulder.
“As attractive as they come. And I admit it’s hard on her if she can’t get him to fix a day for the wedding, but I shall strongly advise him to turn his back on the delights of matrimony for a while yet. For one thing it would be far from satisfactory from his point of view if he married a young woman – though wholly desirable – without being perfectly clear who she is; and from her point of view it could even be disastrous. I shall do something I’ve never done before and issue a certificate that he isn’t fit to marry if he desires it – and she is rather too persuasive. If he doesn’t desire it I shall have a good talk to him, and we’ll see what effect that has.”
Charlotte appeared imperceptibly to brighten.
“He can be very obstinate,” she remarked.
“So can I,” and his square chin told her that he was not exaggerating. “I – I don’t mind how long he stays here… I mean,” as he regarded her somewhat quizzically, “we did once talk – Hannah and I
– of running a nursing-home, and turning this place into one, and naturally we – we don’t want to lose our first patient too soon.” “Naturally,” and he sounded almost soothing.
“We’d like Mr. Tremarth to be really fit before he leaves.” “Naturally,” the doctor said again.
Hannah appeared, and she was looking so glamorous that Charlotte could hardly believe the evidence of her eyes. Lately Hannah had taken to using more make-up, and it suited her amazingly. She had also taken up the hem of her one really smart dinner-dress, and the combined effect of a slim shift-like dress that displayed her naturally pretty knees and about two discreet inches of her attractive thighs, rather heavily darkened eyelashes and a warm pink lipstick undoubtedly caused Dr. Mackay to lose his medical poise for a moment. He stared at her, and his eyes started to glow – and his excellently cared for teeth flashed in an approving smile.
“All this for the Three Sailors?” he said. “The landlord ought to stand us free drinks! ”
Charlotte watched them go, and she watched the tail light of their car as it disappeared down the drive. Once it had vanished she stepped out on to the lawn and felt the coolness of the night breeze as it fanned her cheeks and her bare arms, and she inhaled the perfume of the roses somewhat excitingly mixed with the tangy odour of the sea.
All around her the gardens of Tremarth spread in summer beauty under the stars, and it was the far-away brilliance of the stars as she lifted her eyes to them that made her feel suddenly and quite extraordinarily lonely. It was a loneliness of the spirit – an acute loneliness, because the two who had just left her were very obviously drawn to one another, and in a matter of weeks or months they might have cemented their present friendship by becoming engaged – or married! Doctors needed wives, and Hannah would make a wonderful doctor’s wife… and Charlotte was reasonably certain that if Dr. Mackay asked her to become his wife she would say ‘yes’!
Looked at in a very dispassionate light she would be very silly if she did not.
Then, with or without a medical certificate from Mackay, Richard Tremarth would almost certainly be marrying the lovely golden-headed Claire Brown in a very short space of time from now. He might have memories of a small redheaded sprite of a girl who had plagued him once, but he would marry the young woman who had hastened all the way from London to sit at his bedside as soon as she learned that he had been involved in an accident.
Charlotte began to shiver in the middle of the lawn, and she turned to retrace her steps towards the house. As always, when she was confronted with it – even under cover of soft and silken darkness – she lifted her eyes to it. She supposed she had loved it always, right from those early days when she had stayed in it with her aunt… And now more than ever she felt an almost passionate attachment to it.
If Richard asked her again to sell it she would refuse. She would go on refusing and refusing!
As she stepped through the lighted French window of the drawing-room she recoiled for a moment in alarm, for instead of being empty, as she had left it, a man was reclining at full length on one of the brocade-covered settees… the one in front of the television set, in fact.
Richard Tremarth was wearing his dressing- gown, and a silk scarf with polka-dots tucked in at the neck. His hair was beautifully brushed and gleaming, he had shaved very well that morning, and his chin was still smooth. He wore red morocco slippers, pale violet pyjamas, and a solid gold wrist-watch which he was consulting as she walked into the room.
“It’s too late for you to be wandering about alone out of doors in this remote spot,” he told her severely. “Not only are your shoes too thin and the grass almost certain to be heavy with dew, and therefore you’re risking a chill by getting your feet wet, but I don’t like the idea of you wandering about out there alone.”
“Was that why you got up and decided to come down here and keep me company?” she asked.