Doctor Raoul's Romance (11 page)

When he came downstairs, Raoul confirmed that Gillian was much better.

“It is a marvellous recovery. You are an excellent nurse, Adrien.”

He could not keep the tenderness out of the name.

She looked very tired, he thought, and she appeared to be much thinner. Her flowered dress seemed to hang on her. Her cheekbones stood out under the fine-drawn skin.

He asked impulsively, “What have they been doing to my little
fiancée
? Have they been working you too hard?”

She tried to turn it aside, to laugh, but somehow she could not do it. There was something hypnotic about Raoul, something that compelled an answer. Before she could prevent herself, she had blurted out the whole story.

“Just for a little while,” she ended, “I thought he loved me. And I was so happy. It was wrong, terribly wrong, I know that. But I love him so. Oh, Raoul, I love him so.”

“No,” said Raoul, with intensity, “no, Adrien, you are mistaken. I know you are.”

She looked up at him, surprised.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Simply this.” He put his hand under her chin and turned her face up to his. “I know you imagine yourself to be in love with Nicholas Renton. But believe me, my darling, that is the make-believe love. You see I happen to know, to feel in my soul, that you are in love with me. And one day you will know it too.”

CHAPTER TEN

Nicholas had raised no objection, that July day, when Adrien told him that she must return to England immediately. But to her surprise he asked her if she would take Blanche with her.

“I’m beginning to realize at last, Adrien,” he said, “that you were right about Blanche. That we’ve been foolish and wrong to insist on her staying with us. It might have led to a tragedy. So we’ll let her go now, and do what she always said she wanted to do. I only hope she’ll be happy.

“The only thing is,” he went on, “Gillian feels she’s very young to be on her own. So we’d be awfully grateful if you’d keep an eye on her. Will you, Adrien?”

Adrien felt she had to say yes—was there anything she wouldn’t do for Nicholas? It was a nuisance, of course. Nicholas would pay her living expenses, but, as companion or duenna to Blanche, Adrien wouldn’t be able to go on with her own career. It was astonishing, and—she had to admit it—very hurtful to
Adrien to discover that Nicholas behaved as though he had forgotten those passionate moments by the sea, and their talk next day. Perhaps he had deliberately drawn a curtain in his mind. It was only right, Adrien told herself. Nicholas had come to his senses. And so must she.

Those minutes, that yearning embrace, had had no reality. They had no connection with past or present. It was as though they came from another life, in which Nicholas was free to love her.

It had been arranged that Adrien was to go back to Val d’Argent, in Raoul’s car, to collect her things and Blanche’s, and set off to England with Blanche as soon as possible. By the time Nicholas and Gillian returned, Adrien would be gone.

Blanche accepted Nicholas’s decision quietly. Adrien, who had expected rapturous joy, was a little disappointed. But she told herself it was better this way. Blanche was
f
ar too excitable. It was a good thing she was learning to take things more calmly.

Certainly it seemed as though her shock over the children’s disappearance had sobered Blanche considerably.

Pierre took the news well. He went white, but he said quietly, “It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it, Blanche? I’m glad.”

But later Adrien found him digging in the garden, as though his life depended on it.

“You know, Adrien, I’m not going to give her up,” he said firmly, and glared at Adrien.

She answered sympathetically, but hesitantly, “You’re both so young.”

He strained on the spade to move a tenacious root, and said, “I’ll never give her up. I’ll win her somehow. I’ve got to, Adrien. You see, I’ll never love anyone else.”

“I understand that, Pierre,” she told him. “Who better?” she thought.

But that night she considered her love for Nicholas, as one might look at a precious jewel. And she found it had changed color, faded a little. It was as though the compass of her life had suddenly developed a needle that was slightly false.

She felt a
little frightened, a little lost
...

It was with Raoul that she spent her last day in France, at his special request.

“If we are going to break our engagement,” he said, “we may as well do it in style.”

His eyes danced at her. He took her arm lightly, but possessively. He looked at her as though he knew that, any moment he so desired, his lips could draw hers as a magnet draws a needle, and she would not resist.

“He’s very sure of himself,” thought Adrien, trying to be angry. “He’s convinced that one day I shall love him. He can’t believe any woman could resist him.”

Nevertheless, she was conscious of a strong feeling of excitement, as she dressed for that last evening with him, in the white and silver dress she had come to associate with his presence.

“Where would you like to go?” he asked her.

She meant to shrug, to say lightly, “Anywhere you like.” But instead she found herself murmuring, “down to the river.”

“
Parfait
!
” He seized on the idea with alacrity. “To the river it shall be.”

So, after dinner in a gay, intimate little cafe, they went down to the river gleaming under the lights. And once again she held up her hand, with the ring he had given her sparkling on it, gathering the light into its heart.

“Take it, please, Raoul,” she asked him.

“Must I, Adrien? You know I don’t want to.”

“Please take it,” she insisted.

“Why are you so cruel? I know I could make you happy.”

“You know why. I love Nicholas.”

He laughed a little bitterly, but gently slipped the ring from her finger, and put it in his breast pocket.

“I don’t believe that. You are deceiving your own heart, my little Adrien.”

“Please, Raoul, don’t let’s talk about it,” she begged. “Not tonight.”

“So I have to wait for you to tell me you love me. Well, perhaps it is better that way. I will wait. But I will never give up.”

“Why do you persist that one day I shall know I love you?”

“Look in the river,” he said, his arms around her, turning her gently. “What do you see there?”

She peered into the depths.

“Lights and shadows.”

“And us,” he said, laughing. “Amidst those lights and shadows, you will see our reflections. That’s how I see us together in the future. Because at this moment I see the love in your eyes when you turn to me, that love you will not confess. Believe me, my darling, it is there. We love each other, and I am never going to let you go from my heart or from my life.”

He didn’t kiss her, held her only lightly, and yet she felt breathless as though from a long and passionate embrace.

Now it was November and she was back in England. Blanche was doing well at drama college. That wasn’t really surprising, thought Adrien. When you gave your heart to something as Blanche did to the theater, surely you must succeed.

But though the younger girl was gay and determined, and no longer moody, Adrien thought she sometimes detected a wistful look in her eyes. Did she miss Pierre? Adrien wondered. She knew he wrote to her each week. But Blanche never showed her the letters. She always took them up to her room to read, and once Adrien thought she heard her crying.

Then one day she remained in her room with a letter rather longer than usual, and came out quiet and thoughtful.

“Adrien,” she asked, “why did you break off your engagement to Raoul Dubois? You never told me.”

Adrien felt herself coloring. She answered shortly, “Why should I? It didn’t concern anyone but Raoul and myself.”

“I’m sorry,” said Blanche, genuinely contrite. “I know I’m too curious and interfering. It’s just—love is terribly important, isn’t it? One ought not to let it go.”

“So that’s the way the wind wags now, is it?” thought Adrien, rather amused. “You’re missing Pierre, are you? Unless, of course, that’s just the line from a play you’re studying.”

She surprised a pang in her own heart. Then, like a blinding flash, she became conscious of the true state of her feelings toward Raoul. It was as though Blanche’s questioning had torn the veil from her eyes. She was suddenly conscious that it was now more than a month since she had heard from Raoul. At first he had written twice a week, and Blanche, always the first to run at the postman’s knock, had handed them to her with a knowing look. The letters had been light and witty, but his love for her had found its way through them, like a wistful melody in a gay sonata. Now he didn’t write.

“It’s because he’s in Africa,” Adrien told herself. “It was easy for him to write while he was in Europe. Now it’s much more difficult.” And yet surely he must have some communication with civilization. His last letter had been from Africa, had been in the same vein as the others, had given no hint that he would not be writing again.

“He’s tired of me,” thought Adrien despairingly.

And then the letter came. But it was not at all what she expected.

My dear little ex-mock-
fiancée
,

This is just to bid you
adieu.
You told me both in words and in your letters that you could never love me, so it will not distress you to hear that I find I too love another. I am shortly to marry my old friend Denise de Neuf. Wish us all happiness, dear Adrien, I beg you, as we wish you. I shall always remember the hours we spent together.

Your friend,

Raoul Dubois

She was alone in the flat when she read the letter, and had no need to control her feelings, but she was silent. The wild sobs that shook her heart did not reach her lips.

Raoul and Denise de Neuf. So that was how it was ending. In the wilds of Africa, it was not herself that Raoul had found haunting his dreams, but his old friend Denise.

“Then he could never have loved me,” thought Adrien. “True love does not die like that.” But what then of her love for Nicholas, the love that was ashes now?

“If I had loved Raoul, that time by the river. If I had given him my heart, kept his ring on my finger as he begged me to, would we be happy now? Would he still love me?” She could not guess the answer to that question.

The front doorbell rang three times before it penetrated her consciousness. Then she rose stiffly, feeling as though her legs and her thoughts did not belong to her, and went to open it. Pierre Valentin stood there.

“Hello, Pierre,” she said blankly.

She could feel no emotion in these minutes after shock, not even a casual one.

“Hello, Adrien—but it is almost as if you expected me.”

She made herself laugh. It sounded strange to her own ears. “Perhaps I did expect you,” she told him. “Why not? You love Blanche, and why should you keep away from the one you love, when there is no need? Never let her go, Pierre. If you love her stick to her, no matter what she tells you.”

“Adrien, are you ill?” He was startled by her appearance. “Let me help you. A glass of water?”

“It’s all right, Pierre, I’ve had a bit of a shock, that’s all. Silly of me. Do come in. Blanche isn’t back yet, I’m afraid, but she won’t be long. What can I get you? Coffee? Sherry? I’m afraid we haven’t any whisky.”

“I think it is you who need something. I had something at the station.” He paused, then burst out as though he couldn’t help himself, his eyes roving around the pretty sitting room as though seeking signs of his loved one’s presence, “Adrien, tell me—how is Blanche? She is well, yes? Her letters—they tell me nothing.”

“Very well,” Adrien said, forcing herself to smile at him. She offered him a
cigarette
, and he accepted. She said impulsively, “I think she misses you. In fact I know she does.”

His face lit up.

“
C’est sur,
Adrien? She misses me. Then is there hope for me after all?”

Adrien’s calm broke.

“Yes, there is hope for you. She misses you, Pierre. Don’t let her go. Hold her fast, hold her fast, Pierre, while you can. Excuse me, I—oh, there is Blanche. Will you open the door for her?’ She fled to her bedroom, hearing Blanche’s gay voice as she said goodnight to a fellow-student, the sudden silence as the door opened and she saw Pierre. Then the quick cry of rapture
...

Adrien knew that Blanche had thrown herself into Pierre’s arms.

In her room she covered her face with her hands and cried, at last.

It wasn’t easy to write a congratulatory letter to Raoul. Ad
r
ien shut herself up in her room next morning and at last emerged, white-faced, with a sealed envelope in her hand.

She noticed that a letter had come by the second post, and was lying on the hall mat. She picked it up idly, and was surprised to see Gillian’s writing. Once she would have torn it open with eager anguish, yearning for news of Nicholas. Now she thrust it carelessly into her bag and went to post her own letter.

On her return, opening her bag to take out her lipstick, she found the letter there, and casually tore off the flap.

But as her eyes ran down the lines of Gillian’s neat writing, which yet had flourish in it, they widened, and she sat down, suddenly very pale.

“Adrien, you must come, you must come at once.” (When had she read that before?)