The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner Page 0,65
glove and rubbed his jaw with the exposed hand. “Adeline, why are you firing me as your doctor?”
“I’m not firing you.” She pushed the shovel deeper into the ground until it was standing upright on its own.
“Really. What do you call it then?”
“Does it matter?”
“Is this about the medicine?”
Adeline looked at him in pure shock. She had been honestly struggling to figure out why he was so upset, and now the full implication of his words struck her hard.
“The medicine … that you gave me … that medicine?” Her words came out slowly, as she tried to process his obvious anger at her.
“Is it because I won’t give you any more of it?”
“Dr. Gray!” Her eyes lit up with such fury, he immediately regretted saying it. “Are you honestly standing there accusing me of being an addict of some kind? Of switching doctors so I can get more drugs? You, of all people?”
Dr. Gray removed his other glove and shoved both of them deep into his coat pockets in visible frustration. Looking about for somewhere to sit, he spied an overturned clay urn under a crab-apple tree and went and plonked himself down on it.
“Well?” Adeline persisted in her anger.
Dr. Gray sat staring at the ground about him, at the dead leaves and dried seedheads of last summer’s hydrangea and allium blossoms. He could see that keeping up with the garden must have come to a crashing standstill for Adeline amidst the terrible events of last fall. He thought about the broken front gate, and all the yardwork to be done about them, and how only a widow could find herself with such a house and property to manage all on her own.
“You need someone to help you out around here,” he answered her instead, trying to regain some verbal command of the situation now spiralling out of his feeble control, as things so often seemed to do whenever he was near her.
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Look, I’m very sorry if I guessed wrong just now—but I felt it incumbent upon me, as your physician, to make sure there was nothing going on. Nothing of that kind, at least.”
“Dr. Gray, I had hoped you would know me well enough to know that I would never get out of control like that.”
He looked up at her. “Unfortunately, it can happen to the best of us. I know that for a fact. Look, I am sorry, but I had to ask. I had to know that I had asked the question at least, no matter how much it upset you.”
“How brave you are.”
He could see her dry humour returning, which helped him ask the one question he had dreaded even more, ever since the loss of her baby.
“Adeline, is it anything else I’ve done?”
“Not at all. I just—it’s a new year, you know? And we’re going to be working together again, with the society, and it’s probably a good idea to keep some things separate.”
Dr. Gray wasn’t sure he believed any of this. “But I am Adam’s doctor as you well know, and Miss Knight’s, too. I am a professional after all.…” But his words struck even him as strangely disingenuous, and he let his voice trail off.
“I know that. Look, really, it’s nothing in particular. I just feel like it’s … it’s time for a change.” Adeline was grasping for a way to end this conversation. She had never seen Dr. Gray angry or distrustful of her before, not even in the slightest. She was not liking it one little bit, nor how angry he was making her feel in return.
“Who will you go to then, for care?”
She hadn’t thought this through yet—he had caught her so off-guard.
“Um, Dr. Westlake—Howard Westlake—the surgeon who operated on me, over at the Alton Hospital.”
This answer seemed to only perturb Dr. Gray even more. “You put greater confidence in him then, is that it?”
“Not at all. I just think it might be easier, to start fresh with someone not from the village. Not so, um, intimately connected with my case.”
The image of her bloodstained white lace nightgown suddenly flashed through Dr. Gray’s head. For the first time he appreciated that they might have shared too much—that they might not be able to go back to what they were before.
“Yes, of course, fine then,” he finally relented. “It’s whatever you think best.”
He got up to head back towards the front gate, then turned to her one last time. “Do you think I could send Adam round, to