A Winter Love Story. Betty Neels

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СКАЧАТЬ up and about again?’

      ‘The Colonel is an old man, but he should be able to live the life of a man of his age.’

      ‘Yes, but…’

      ‘Claudia, let Dr Tait-Bullen finish…’

      ‘Sorry.’ She flushed and he watched the colour creep into her cheeks before he said, ‘I quite under stand your anxiety. If Dr Willis wishes, I will come again very shortly and do my best to change the Colonel’s mind. I feel sure that if anyone can do that it will be he, for they have known each other for a long time. I can but advise.’

      He glanced at the other man. ‘We have discussed what is best to be done—there are certain drugs which will help, diet, suitable physiotherapy…’

      ‘I’m sure you have done everything within your power, Doctor,’ said Mrs Ramsay. ‘We will do our best to persuade Uncle William, and if you would keep an eye on him?’ She looked at Dr Willis. ‘That is, if you don’t mind, George?’

      ‘I am only too glad of expert advice.’

      ‘Oh, good. You’ll stay for lunch, Dr Tait-Bullen? In half an hour or so…’

      ‘I must return to London, Mrs Ramsay. You will forgive me if I refuse your kind invitation.’

      He shook hands with her, and then with Dr Willis. ‘We will be in touch.’

      ‘Claudia, take Dr Tait-Bullen to his car, will you, dear?’

      They walked through the house together, out of the door and across the neglected sweep of gravel to where a dark grey Rolls Royce stood. Claudia stared at it reflectively.

      ‘Are you just a doctor?’ she wanted to know. ‘Or someone more important?’ She glanced at his quiet face. ‘Mother called you Doctor, so I thought you were. You’re not, are you?’

      ‘Indeed, I am a doctor. I am also a surgeon…’

      ‘So you’re Mr Tait-Bullen. You’re not a professor or anything like that, are you?’

      ‘I’m afraid so…’

      ‘You might have said so.’

      ‘Quite unnecessary. Besides, being called a professor makes me feel old.’

      ‘You’re not old.’

      He answered her without rancour. ‘Thirty-nine. And you?’

      She had asked for that. Anyway, what did it matter? ‘I’m very nearly twenty-seven,’ she told him.

      He said smoothly, ‘I am surprised that you are not yet married, Miss Ramsay.’

      ‘Well, I’m not,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve not met anyone I’ve wanted to marry.’ She added pettishly, ‘I have had several proposals.’

      ‘That does not surprise me.’ He smiled down at her, thinking how unusual it was to see grey eyes allied with such very red hair. He sounded suddenly brisk. ‘You will do your best to persuade the Colonel to agree to surgery, will you?’

      When she nodded, he got into his car and drove away. His handshake had been firm and cool and brief.

      Claudia went back to the morning room and found her mother and Dr Willis deep in talk. They smiled at her as she went in, and her mother said, ‘He’s gone? Such a pleasant man, and not a bit stiff or pompous. Dr Willis has been telling me that he’s quite an important surgeon—perhaps I shouldn’t have given him coffee in the kitchen.’ She frowned. ‘Do you suppose Uncle will take his advice?’

      ‘Most unlikely, Mother. I’ll take his lunch up presently, and see if he’ll talk about it.’

      Great-Uncle William had no intention of talking to anyone on the subject. When Claudia made an attempt to broach the matter, she was told to hold her tongue and mind her own business. Advice which she took in good part, for she was used to the old man’s irascible temper and had a strong affection for him.

      He had been very good to her mother and to her when her father died, giving them a home, educating her, while at the same time making no bones about the fact that he would have been happier living in the house by himself, with his housekeeper and Tombs to look after him. All the same, she suspected that he had some affection for them both, and was grateful for that.

      It was a pity that on his death the house would pass to a distant cousin whom she had never met. That Uncle William had made provision for her mother and herself was another reason for gratitude, for Mrs Ramsay had only a small income, and after years of living in comfort it would have been hard for her to move to some small house and count every penny.

      They would miss the old house, with its large rooms and elegant shabbiness, and they would miss Tombs and Mrs Pratt and Jennie too, but Claudia supposed that she would have a job somewhere or other and make a life for herself. Somewhere she could get home easily from time to time. Her mother would miss her friends. Especially she would miss Dr Willis, always there to cope with any small crisis.

      The days went unhurriedly by. Claudia finished turning out the library and turned her attention to the rather battered greenhouse at the bottom of the large garden. The mornings were frosty, and old Stokes, who came up from the village to see to the garden, tidied the beds and dug the ground in the kitchen garden, leaving her free to look after the contents of the glass house.

      It contained a medley of pots and containers, filled with seedlings and cuttings, and she spent happy hours grubbing around, hopefully sowing seed trays and nursing along the hyacinths and tulips she intended for Christmas.

      And every day she spent an hour or so with her great-uncle, reading him dry-as-dust articles from The Times or listening to him reminiscing about his military career. He still refused to speak of his illness. It seemed to her anxious eyes that he was weaker, short of breath, easily tired and with an alarming lack of appetite.

      Dr Willis came to see him frequently, and it was at the end of a week in which he could detect no improvement in his patient that he told Mrs Ramsay that he had asked Mr Tait-Bullen to come again.

      He came on a dreary November morning, misty and damp and cold, and Claudia, busy with her seed lings, an old sack wrapped around her topped by a jacket colourless with age, knew nothing of his arrival. True, she had been told that he was to come again, but no day had been fixed; he was an exceedingly busy man, she’d been told, and his out of town visits had to be fitted in whenever possible.

      He had spent some time with the Colonel, and even longer with Dr Willis, before talking to Mrs Ramsay, and when that lady observed that she would send Tombs to fetch Claudia to join them, volunteered to fetch her himself.

      Studying the sack and the old jacket as he entered the greenhouse, he wondered if he was ever to have the pleasure of seeing Claudia looking like the other young women of his acquaintance—fashionably clad, hair immaculate, expertly made up—and decided that she looked very nice as she was. The thought made him smile.

      She had looked round as he opened the door and her smile was welcoming.

      ‘Hello—does Mother know you’re here?’ And then, ‘Great Uncle isn’t worse?’

      ‘I’ve СКАЧАТЬ