Chapter 11
I'll skip the next years of my life. They were very happy and it seemed that they were destined to remain so.
George and Helen got married and set up home at the surgery. Susan, after a bitter quarrel with her step-father, making life at home intolerable, moved in with us at Beldon Hall. We often slept three in a bed; and the two of them formed a strong Lesbian attachment to one another, which in no way detracted from their sexual desires towards me.
It is common knowledge that the medical profession frowns on any associations of an unsavory nature between Doctor and Patient. Having been guilty of breaking this long-established code in both Tina's and Susan's case. I was lulled in to a sense of false security. I had two more strange incidents that led to a degree of familiarity between girls attending the surgery and myself, though these were fleeting fancies on my part and died a natural death without any harm being done.
No, it was some years later that the particular event, that was to prove my ultimate undoing, took place.
A young married couple made an appointment to see me and were shown in to the surgery by Susan. He was a ordinary sort of man pleasant enough but with not much personality. His wife, on the other hand, had charm, looks, figure and everything that goes to make a really 'smasher'. They had been married about eighteen months, and the only fly in the ointment was the fact that the girl had as yet not conceived. She had a strong maternal instinct and was crazy to have children of her own.
Their sex-life had been regular and complete, if not particularly exciting or romantic. No precautions had been taken, yet she had never fallen pregnant. She was a virgin up to the time of the marriage and neither party had ever had connections other than with each other. Such were the facts presented to me.
I agreed that one of them must be incapable of reproducing, or as happens in rare cases there was some unexplainable physical phenomena that made it impossible for them to reproduce, though either might be able to do so with another partner.
I told them that a medical examination and certain tests would enable the matter to be settled without doubt one way or another. I suggested that there might be some obstruction in the wife's tubes or womb that a simple operation would put right.
They left, somewhat reassured, stating that they would talk it over and contact me within the next week or so to let me know what they had decided.
It was the husband who phoned. He made an appointment and came for me to examine him. I drew of a quantity of his sperm and sent it away for analysis to a lab.
The following day the wife came and I examined her in Susan's presence. I took X-ray photos and samples from the lining of her womb. These also I sent away.
She herself was quite sure that it was her husband who was to blame, whilst he had been equally adamant that it was his wife's fault. When the reports arrived, I found that it was the husband who was incapable of fertilizing the wife's cells, and that she was in every way capable of motherhood.
Now up to this time I hadn't put a foot wrong. The next step should have been to get them to come and see me together and give them the facts in each other's presence.
But, by a cruel twist of fate, the wife called in during surgery the same morning the reports arrived. I told her the plain truth. Her first reaction was relief that it was not her that was at fault. Then when I mentioned that I proposed to call her husband and explain the facts, she suddenly burst into tears and pleaded with me to give her a day to think the matter over before I told him.
Seeing her so distressed I agreed and after giving her a sedative, she departed home.
Next morning she was back. She was obviously in some difficulty finding words to express her thoughts, and I had to coax her into telling me why she didn't want her husband to know the truth.
She confided that she came from working class people, who were strict Roman Catholics. She had always from childhood been determined to better herself. That despite her home and schooling, chiefly aided by her good looks, she had managed to mix with children above her station. She watched and copied their speech and manners, and studied hard to acquire the necessary standard of education to get a decent job. Her looks had enabled her to get a stewardess' job with B.E.A. and she had been employed on domestic flights between London and Edinburgh, and London and Glasgow.
Her husband flew regularly on these routes in connection with his business and they had got friendly. He was the only son on a wealthy broker, who transacted a lot of business of behalf of clients from the north. He had a large private income and would one day inherit his father's firm and the capital he had amassed.
She was quite happy with him except for this one trouble, which was causing all the friction between them. She was not willing to sacrifice the chance of having kids of her own. . . one at least. Her catholic upbringing ruled out divorce, even if she had been prepared to give up the comfortable life she had grown accustomed to. If her husband knew the truth, he would insist on adopting a child. This would only serve to remind her that she was never to have one of her own. If, however he were not told, she could have one to someone else and he would bring it up as his own.
She pointed out that if he adopted one it was exactly the same thing. . . someone else's child. But this way he would be much happier thinking he was the actual father and she would have the gratification of bringing up her own baby.
I could see the logic in her arguments, and her entreaties finally won me over.