Eva Ibbotson

It came then. Belief. He was real, he was here. She sat up and threw herself forward into his arms—and among the frenzied words of love and agony and longing Rom caught, surprisingly, the name of a well-known London suburb.

“You want to live in St. John’s Wood?” he asked, startled. Later it occurred to him that this salubrious district had probably saved Professor Morton’s life, for the passion with which Harriet now pleaded to be set up as a kept lady so intrigued him that he forgot his murderous rage.

“It is an entrancing prospect, certainly,” he said. “Especially the Gothic windows. However, I am not going to install you in a villa in St. John’s Wood. I am going to install you at Stavely where you will be my love, my companion and also—by tomorrow afternoon—my wife.”

“No.” Harriet had had her miracle. She needed no more and lifting her face a daring inch away from his, she informed him that he was going to marry Isobel.

“Harriet, do be quiet about Isobel. I never had the slightest intention of marrying her and if you had not been so obstinate and blind you would have seen that at once. I don’t even like her any more—the way she treats Henry would put me off for a start. In fact, in the month I’ve spent with her I’ve grown quite sorry for my brother. Now listen, I must get hold of the necessary documents and go and find your father, but I’ll be back—”

No. She was not able to be left. Her eyes grew wide with fear. “If you go, they’ll find some way of separating us. They’ll lock me in again and tell you I’m mad and—”

“All right then, we’ll go together,” he said, cheerfully matter-of-fact. “You can wait in the car. Get dressed and—”

“I can’t. They’ve taken away my clothes.”

Rom gritted his teeth against a renewed attack of fury. “Never mind.” He pulled a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around her, picked her up. “Poor Harriet, I’m always abducting you in unsuitable clothes.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Fortescue!” Louisa, with Mrs. Belper hovering behind her, was waiting in the hall. “Whatever does this mean?”

“It means that I am taking away your patient immediately,” said Rom. “I have diagnosed pernicious anaemia, tuberculosis of the lung and an incipient brain tumor. It is possible that I can save her with instant treatment at my clinic, but there is not a moment to lose.”

“But that’s impossible… I must consult my brother. This is not what we expected at all…” Louisa was entirely at a loss. “And the fees at your clinic would be quite beyond us.”

Rom took a steadying breath. “If you want a corpse on your hands, Miss Morton, and a court case, that is your affair. You have called me in; I have given my diagnosis. Now, please fetch the patient’s birth certificate at once: it is required by the governors of my clinic as a condition of admission.”

“I told you she was too thin,” bleated Mrs. Belper.

Totally flustered, Louisa made as if to go to the telephone, only to find the extraordinary surgeon standing in front of it while still holding Harriet in his arms.

“Her birth certificate,” he said implacably. “At once.”

The Rolls had driven off and the ladies were trying without success to calm themselves in the drawing room, when the doorbell rang again.

“Good afternoon,” said the obese, gray-haired gentleman standing on the step. “You are expecting me, I know. My name is Fortescue…”

Professor Morton was lecturing, pacing the rostrum, his gown flapping, his voice managing to be both irascible and droning; while in the front row Blakewell, a fair-haired, good-looking young man destined for holy orders, wondered if boredom could kill and kicked Hastings who had gone to sleep and was sliding from his chair.

“And this man who calls himself a scholar,” rasped the Professor, “has the effrontery—the unbelievable effrontery—to suggest that the word hoti in line three of the fifth stanza should be translated as—”

The door burst open. An agitated College servant could be seen trying to restrain a man in an extraordinarily well-cut gray suit who pushed him aside without effort, closed the door in his face and proceeded to walk in a relaxed manner to the rostrum.

“Professor Morton?”

“I am Professor Morton, yes. But how dare you walk in here unannounced and interrupt my lecture. It’s unheard of!”

“Well, it has been heard of now,” said the intruder calmly, and the students sat up with a look of expectancy on their faces. “I came to inform you that I have removed your daughter firmly and finally from your house and to ask you to sign this document.” He laid a piece of paper with a red seal on the lectern. “As you see, it is your permission for my marriage to Harriet.”

The Professor grew crimson; the Adam’s apple worked in his scraggy throat. “How dare you! How dare you come in here and wave pieces of paper at me! And how dare you kidnap my daughter!”