Free Return to Tremarth by Susan Barrie Page B

by all the medical details as well.” “Oh, but he’s an old friend — ” Charlotte protested.
    The doctor’s eyebrows arched.
    “I mean, I knew him years ago,” Charlotte explained.
    The doctor smiled.
    “In that case, he should remember you. But if you really mean years
    ago then you must have been very young at the time.”
    “I was only a child.”
    Dr. Mackay shrugged.
    “Then if there’s been a very long interval between your childish knowledge of one another and your present acquaintanceship he’s still not much more than a virtual stranger to you, is he?” he observed reasonably. And Charlotte realised that what he meant was that unless there was some particular reason why Tremarth should have her firmly imprinted on his mind she was no more likely to affect his present state and assist his return to a normal one than any of the other people around him
    — including the doctor himself if it came to that.
    Charlotte allowed him to go upstairs to the invalid with an odd feeling of resentment, nevertheless, and when he had departed and Hannah passed on to her the information that he was not seriously concerned about the patient’s lapse, and expected it might last for several days unless something happened to jog his shrouded memory, she could not refrain from arguing somewhat perversely that it did seem to her extraordinary that Richard wasn’t able to recall her.
    “But why?” Hannah asked, studying her with rather more intentness than usual, as if she was suddenly intrigued.
    Charlotte shrugged.
    “Oh, I don’t honestly know why. Except that he was very annoyed with me recently, and when you’re annoyed with a person you're less apt to forget them than if they happened to be someone else,” she argued without very much conviction herself, However.
    Hannah went on studying her with a certain unconcealed interest.
    “Apart from that is there any very good reason why he should remember you?” she asked.
    Charlotte appeared suddenly confused by the direct question, and actually developed a slight pink tinge in her cheeks while she denied the imputation emphatically.
    “Oh, no, of course not! ... Why,” she added naively, “we don’t even like one another.”
    “You mean you don’t like him?”
    “Oh, I don’t dislike him at all!”
    “But you think he was annoyed with you for good reason?”
    “He wanted Tremarth...”
    “Well, he must have wanted it very badly, for his subconscious took over and literally forced him into that crash the other night. If he wasn’t dwelling on you he was dwelling on Tremarth .. . and now it seems very likely that he’ll remain a patient here for weeks.”
    “Oh, do you think so?”
    “Well, perhaps not weeks. But it could be one or two weeks. Do you think you can afford to keep him all that length of time, and provide the various extras that will be necessary?” “Of course,” Charlotte replied, with a considerable amount of surprised emphasis this time. “Of course,” she repeated.
    Hannah smiled somewhat curiously and turned away.
    “Well, if you’ll forgive me,” she said, “I’ll go and have another look at him.”
    Charlotte made a careful inspection of the contents of the kitchen and the larder, and by the time she was rejoined once more by her friend she had already drawn up a long list of essentials that would have to be obtained from the village store if the patient’s physical wellbeing was to be maintained. Hannah took the list from her and arched her eyebrows a little at the sight of such items as chicken in aspic and fresh strawberries if available, and she suggested that there were probably some strawberries in the garden if they went searching for them. And a more economical buy than chicken in aspic — which the
    village store was hardly likely to have in stock — would be a couple of fresh chickens from the local butcher, which they could keep in the larder and turn into various things like soups and casseroles when the