The Three Sisters
May Sinclair
The Three Sisters XXIX
She was still thinking of the blinds when she saw that the man who came towards her was Rowcliffe.
He was wearing his rough tweed suit and his thick boots, and he had the look of the open air about him.
"Is that you, Miss Cartaret? Good!"
He grasped her hand. He behaved exactly as if he had expected her. He never even wondered what she had come for. She might have come to say that her father or one of her sisters was dying, and would he go at once; but none of these possibilities occurred to him.
He didn't want to account for her coming to him. It was natural and beautiful she should come.
Then, as she stepped into the lighted passage, he saw that she was bareheaded and eyelashes were parted and gathered into little wet points.
He took her arm gently and led her into his study and shut the door. They faced each other there.
"I thought you were ill."
"I? Ill? Good heavens, no!"
"They told me in the village you'd got diphtheria. And I came to know if it was true. It _isn't_ true?"
He smiled; an odd little embarrassed smile; almost as if he were owning that it was or had been true.
"_Is_ it?" she persisted as he went on smiling.
"Of course it isn't."
She frowned as she were annoyed with him for not being ill.
"Then what was that other man here for?"
"Harker? Oh, he just took my place for a day or two while I had a sore throat."
"You _had_ a throat then?"
Thus she accused him.
She defied him to deny it.
"That's nothing. Anybody would. I had to."
"And--you saved the baby?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. Some thing or other pulled the little beggar through."
"And you might have got it?"
"I might but I didn't."
"You _did_ get a throat. And it _might_ have been diphtheria."
Thus by accusing him she endeavored to justify herself.
"It might," he said, "but it wasn't. I had to knock off work till I was sure."
"And you're sure now?"
"I can tell you _you_ wouldn't be here if I wasn't."
"And they told me you were dying."
At that he laughed aloud. An irresistible, extravagantly delighted laugh. When he stopped he choked and began all over again; the idea of his dying was so funny; so was her disgust.
"That," she said, "was why I came."
"Then I'm glad they told you."
"I'm not," said she.
He laughed again at her sudden funny dignity. Then, as suddenly, he was grave.
"I say--it _was_ nice of you."
She held out her hand.
"Oh no, you're not. You're going to stay and have tea and I'm going to walk back with you."
She stayed.
* * * * *
They walked over the moor by Karva. And as they went he talked to her as he hadn't talked before. It was all about himself and his tone was very serious. He talked about his work and (with considerable reservations and omissions) about his life in Leeds, and about his ambition. He told her what he had done and why he had done it and what he was going to do. He wasn't going to stay in Garthdale all his life. Not he. Presently he would want to get to the center of things. (He forgot to mention that this was the first time he had thought of it.) Nothing would satisfy him but a big London practice and a name. He might--ultimately--specialise. If he did he rather thought it would be gynæcology. He was interested in women's cases. Or it might be nervous diseases. He wasn't sure. Anyhow, it must be something big.
For under Gwenda Cartaret's eyes his romantic youth became fiery and turbulent inside him. It not only urged him to tremendous heights, it made him actually feel that he would reach them. For a solid three-quarters of an hour, walking over the moor by Karva, he had ceased to be one of the obscurest of obscure little country doctors. He was Sir Steven Rowcliffe, the great gynæcologist, or the great neurologist (as the case might be) with a row of letters after his name and a whole column under it in the Medical Directory.
And Gwenda Cartaret's eyes never for a moment contradicted him. They agreed with every one of his preposterous statements.
She didn't know that it was only his romantic youth and that he never had been and never would be more youthful than he was for that three-quarters of an hour. On the contrary, to _her_ youth he seemed to have left youth behind him, and to have grown suddenly serious and clear-sighted and mature.
And then he stopped, right on the moor, as if he were suddenly aware of his absurdity.
"I say," he said, "what must you think of me? Gassing about myself like that."
"I think," she said, "it's awfully nice of you."
"I don't suppose I shall do anything really big. Do you?"
She was silent.
"Honestly now, do you think I shall?"
"I think the things you've done already, the things that'll never be heard of, are really big."
His silence said, "They are not enough for me," and hers, "For me they are enough."
"But the other things," he insisted--"the things I want to do----Do you think I'll do them?"
"I think"--she said slowly--"in fact I'm certain that you'll do them, if you really mean to."
"That's what you think of me?"
"That's what I think of you."
"Then it's all right," he said. "For what I think of _you_ is that you'd never say a thing you didn't really mean."
They parted at the turn of the road, where, as he again reminded her, he had seen her first.
Going home by himself over the moor, Rowcliffe wondered whether he hadn't missed his opportunity.
Plenty of time. Plenty of time. He was so sure of _her_.