Kind Are Her Answers by Mary Renault Read Free Book Online Page A

day she hoped she would have time to learn a little about it, but there always seemed so much … The effect was to make Kit feel faintly selfish and ostentatious, as if he had boasted of proficiency at some snobbish and exclusive game.
    At ten, however, it fortunately turned out that Miss Leach had had a long journey, and would like to get early to bed. Janet took her to her room; and, when she did not return, Kit thought he might decently escape to his own. When he crossed the passage ready for bed, he still heard their voices murmuring through the guestroom door.
    He did not settle quickly; he felt restless, unhappy and disillusioned, and unable to escape it by turning the thing into a hackneyed situation and a music-hall joke. Long after the finish of their married life he had hoped for her friendship, and had a genuine respect for her taste. He was ashamed of the extent to which his feelings had been hurt, unsure of all his judgements, and lonelier than he had ever been in his life. He tried to read, but gave it up and, shutting off thought with dogged obstinacy, at last got off to sleep.
    He seemed scarcely to have closed his eyes when the telephone rang. He thought with resignation that this was typical timing for a confinement; and, as he sat up in bed, collected his ideas about it and checked over in his mind the contents of his midwifery bag.
    “Is that Dr. Anderson?”
    “Speaking.” His recognition of the voice had been so immediate that he seemed to have awaited it. He answered, feeling two distinct existences; one which listened attentively to a case-history and made appropriate deductions, another which followed its own reasoning, made its own decisions, and, thrust impatiently aside by the first, still moved in the darkness outside the circle of the lamp, tinging the colour of the night.
    “The symptoms have only just come on. Yes. Yes. And you’ve given her the digitalis mixture. Good. All right; don’t worry. I’ll be right along.”
    When he was dressing he found himself looking out a clean collar—a thing he had never done on an urgent call in his life—and shut the drawer again with a slam.
    The house was quiet and unlighted. He went softly downstairs and out to the car. He was in the garage before he noticed that it was his midwifery bag he had brought out. He ran back to the surgery for the other, swearing at himself.
    It was still raining, quietly and steadily, filling the air with a monotonous sigh. The light over the porch at Laurel Dene was reflected in a deep puddle in one of the sunken places of the drive. Christie opened the door as he drew up; she had on the Chinese-blue dressing gown she had worn before.
    For a moment neither of them spoke; then Kit said, “Good evening,” and she answered and stood aside from the open door. Kit put down his bag and began to get out of his driving coat, wet already in the distance between the car and the porch. She helped him to pull it off, then said, “I don’t think she’s so bad this time as last. Perhaps I ought not to have sent for you.” Again it was as if her voice had broken a pause.
    “Not at all,” Kit said. “One can’t afford to take chances with a condition of this kind. You were perfectly right to call me up.” He crossed the hall to Miss Heath’s room, hearing, distinct in the silence, the movement of her silk gown behind him.
    He opened the door quietly, and then paused on the threshold, instinctively barring the girl’s passage with his hand on the jamb; for in the first moment he thought that Miss Heath was dead. Her round yellow face lay motionless in its mound of pillows, with closed eyes; her mouth, faintly blue, was a little open. He bent nearer. A faint, rhythmic sound disturbed the quiet. It was a gentle snore.
    Kit tiptoed gently to the bed. It was true that her colour was far from good. She might, he thought, have had an attack of some kind a little while before. Perhaps he was mistaken; she might be unconscious.