The Quiet Heart by Susan Barrie

women have to nurse sick husbands,” she said defensively. “And children,” she added.
    “But you haven’t got any children—of your own.”
    “No.”
    “However, you probably will have one day.” His tone sounded conversational. The doctor had agreed that he could smoke a pipe, and he stuffed tobacco into the bowl of it.
    Alison averted her face.
    “Tell me about your Miss Prim,” she said. “She sounds delightful.”
    He laughed suddenly, as if he was genuinely amused but was unable to share the secret of his amusement with her.
    “She is delightful,” he agreed. “She’s a peach, a poppet ... but not, I’m afraid, a very good secretary. She forgets, and she makes mistakes. But I overlook it because I don’t think I could get on without her.”
    “I see,” Alison said.
    Once again his eyes surveyed her whimsically. “Before I leave here and you have the satisfaction of writing me off as good as new once more I’ll get you to give her lunch, and perhaps put her up for a night before we return to London,” he said. “You will then be able to decide for yourself whether she’s as delightful as she sounds.”
    “Of course,” Alison agreed. She was fairly certain Miss Prim would be more delightful even than she sounded on the telephone, and astonishingly she found that she wasn’t altogether looking forward to the visit of Miss Prim. “She—she seemed to think you ought to stay on here at Leydon for another week or fortnight,” she told him. “And as you’ve still got rather a nasty cough, and London in November is hardly an ideal place for someone recovering from a bronchial infection, don’t you think it would be a good idea if you did stay on here for that length of time?” she suggested. “Dr. Geddes was talking about your spending the rest of the winter abroad. What do you think of that?”
    “Rubbish,” he said softly. “I decline even to contemplate going abroad.”
    “Yorkshire is rather bracing, but the air is pure. Do you like the idea of staying on at the Hall?”
    “With you putting yourself out to look after me? That’s not very fair, is it?”
    “Margaret and Jenny have been coming up every day from the village, and they’re a great help,” she admitted. “Mrs. Davenport is really enjoying herself looking after you, so I’m far from doing everything for you myself. And then, of course, there are the girls,” by whom she meant Marianne and Jessamy. “Everyone is eager to help.”
    “Why?” he enquired innocently, as if it struck him as strange that anyone should enjoy looking after him.
    Alison smiled a small, inscrutable smile. But she made no attempt to enlighten him. He was probably conceited enough, she thought ... and then wondered, as her grey eyes travelled over him, whether indeed that was the case, or whether she was actually wronging him.
    He met her eyes with a tiny smile in his own.
    “I feel sure I’m an awful burden thrust upon you, Alison ... and everyone else. But if it’s a question of payment, everyone will be well paid,” rather more drily, “before I leave here,” he added.
    Suddenly, and almost breathlessly, she assured him:
    “No one has looked after you just for payment. Jenny and Margaret could get other jobs, but they like coming here.”
    “And Mrs. Davenport, you say, enjoys looking after me,” as if he doubted it.
    “She enjoys it so much that her husband is complaining because she’s hardly ever at home.”
    His eyebrows arched.
    “But Marianne, surely, doesn’t enjoy answering imperious summonses on my bell?”
    “I think she does.”
    “And Jessamy?” with a new, intriguing note of softness.
    “Jessamy is like a dog curling up outside your room. She has been very anxious.”
    His eyebrows went higher, but he smiled. “She is quite an angelic child,” he murmured. “One day before I leave here I want to talk to you about Jessamy.”
    “Then you will stay on here until you’re really better?”
    He regarded her