Doctor Raoul's Romance by Penelope Butler

What right had he to do that? she asked herself, indignant, forgetting the communion of healing they had shared.
    “You have known Mr. Renton a long time, haven’t you, Miss Grey?”
    “We were brought up together,” she answered stiffly. “We are like brother and sister.”
    “I see. May I ask if you know Mrs. Renton well?”
    “Not so well. But I’m very fond of her.”
    She felt ridiculously on the defensive. She could not understand her own meekness. Why did she not rebel? A doctor had no right to ask a nurse these questions. Not in England anyway. She supposed it might be different in France.
    “I see. Well, Nurse Grey, I must be going now. I’ll arrange with Dr. Lerouge for a night nurse for Mrs. Renton, in case she is restless. I take it that will be all right with Mr. Renton?”
    “Oh yes, I’m sure it will.”
    “Well, I leave them both, husband and wife, in your care.” He shook her hand and was gone.
    Adrien went into the garden for a few minutes’ fresh air, before returning upstairs. She was frowning.
    She had a feeling there was some sort of double meaning underlying the doctor’s last words, but she could not interpret it.
    “Surely,” she thought, in sudden panic, “he can’t have guessed that I love Nicholas. Oh, it isn’t possible. It can’t be as obvious as that.”
    She buried her face in her hands.
    “I always thought I was so self-controlled. Now everybody seems to know all my secrets. How I wish I could go back to England today, tonight! But it isn’t possible. I can’t leave Gillian now. I must carry on somehow.”
    Pulling herself together with an effort, she started to walk back toward the house.
    Suddenly she was aware that Blanche was approaching with Gillian’s little Corgi, Beauty, bounding around her yellow skirt. “Hello, Adrien,” she called.
    “Hello, Blanche.”
    Adrien couldn’t help speaking rather shortly. She hesitated, wondering whether it would be wise to tax Blanche immediately with what had happened last night. She was strung up and ready for combat with someone, and Blanche was the obvious person.
    The younger girl was asking eagerly, her face, pale, “How is Gillian?”
    “Much better.”
    “Really, Adrien?” There were tears in Blanche’s eyes.
    “Yes, she’s doing well.”
    “You sound a bit funny, Adrien. Are you keeping something back from me? Is she worse? Is she—dying?” Blanche began to tremble violently. “Oh, Adrien!”
    Adrien put her hand on the girl’s thin shoulder to calm her. She said coldly, “Don’t be silly, Blanche. Hysteria won’t help anyone. I’m telling you the truth. Gillian is doing as well as can be expected. Nicholas is with her now.”
    The girl gulped down her rising emotion.
    “I’m sorry. I’m not going to be a nuisance. It’s just—I ...”
    “I understand how you feel.” But to herself, Adrien thought, “I don’t really. I don’t understand how she feels at all. Blanche is an enigma to me.”
    “Blanche, you’re grown up now. You really must try to behave like an adult, not a silly schoolgirl.”
    “Oh, I will, Adrien. It’s just that I really do love Gill, you know. I know I’m horrid to her sometimes. But I do love her.”
    “Then why do you repeat gossip that you must know would hurt her?”
    “Gossip? What do you mean? I don’t understand.” Blanche was genuinely puzzled.
    Adrien steadied her face.
    “Why did you tell the children that I was in love with Nicholas? That, if Gillian died, I would marry him? That I had come here with that intention? How could you, Blanche? It was a terrible thing to do.”
    Up till that moment she had doubted whether Blanche had really said anything of the kind. Surely, she had believed, not even she could be as tactless as that? It might have been that little Geoffrey had misunderstood. Though how a child could have made up a thing like that, Adrien could not think. But now, seeing the color flood into the younger girl’s face, she knew there had