New Doctor at Northmoor (2 page)

‘
You say you want the pictures, but it
’
s the stables you
’
re hankering for,
’
the old woman accused.

‘
A bit of both,
’
Gwenny admitted.
‘
Anyway, I
’
d spend an awful lot on making over the stables, and an awful lot on the inside of the house
‘

‘
What about the woodworm?
’
the old woman asked sourly.

‘
You don
’
t know for sure that there
’
s woodworm, and you could get in awful trouble for saying so.
’

‘
Not me,
’
Mrs.
Yeedon said stoutly.
‘
Who
’
d bother to sue me? I
’
ve not a penny piece to bless myself with, so where would be the sense of running up court fees? Besides, everyone knows I say what I think, and there
’
s none to stop me. And I say if there isn
’
t woodworm, there
’
s dry rot, and it
’
s my belief that they
’
re just hanging on, over at Fairmead, to see if someone wants to buy them out lock, stock and barrel. Folks reckon there
’
s a lot of money in selling out for development nowadays.
’

‘
Don
’
t you listen to them,
’
said Gwenny.
‘
My friend Willy
—’

‘
Oh, ah, that fancy estate agent your mother doesn
’
t like. I know him,
’
Mrs.
Yeedon said scathingly.

‘
He
’
s very nice, and he
’
s sensible, and his uncle is training him in the business, and I like him,
’
Gwenny said indignantly.
‘
Anyway, he says that it
’
s only the builders who make a lot of money, because they
’
re the ones who put up the little houses. It
’
s the new houses, and not the land, that fetches the money. Anyway, if I somehow miraculously got hold of Fairmead, I wouldn
’
t let it be pulled down. I
’
d ask you to come and live there
.’

‘
Not me
,’
Mrs.
Yeedon said, in alarm.
‘
I wouldn
’
t go
and live there
.’

‘
To be my housekeeper?
’

‘
No, not for nothing. It
’
s haunted.’

That set Gwenny laughing and the colour rushed back to her cheeks. Under cover of pretending to scold about the old house whose pale green roof could just be discerned through the trees, on the other side of the valley, she watched Gwenny, and allowed herself to feel relief. Yes, the child looked better now. It must be just the heat. Queer, though, the way she suddenly became that funny waxen hue every so often.

Gwenny Kinglake had a young, tender look for her years. Although her eighteenth birthday was only two months away, she looked no more than fifteen at times, and
Mrs.
Yeedon worried about her. She worried far more than Gwenny
’
s own mother.

It wasn
’
t as if one could call Gwenny frail. It was not as easy as that. She had a slender boyish figure, it was true, and fine-cut features, and the pale colouring of hair and eyes all added to the illusion that Gwenny was delicate. Yet she did a fair amount of walking and cycling, and anyone who could dance the hours Gwenny did with that young Willy, the estate agent
’
s nephew, must surely have resilience. Yet there were times when Gwenny
’
s spun gold hair and brilliant blue eyes seemed to hold all the life in her, and there was no colour left anywhere else, no vitality. That was it,
Mrs.
Yeedon told herself: as if something invisible was sapping that girl
’
s life blood.

‘
When did you last have one of them fancy check-ups the medical men are always talking about
?’
she suddenly demanded.

Gwenny looked startled.
‘
What did you ask that for
?
You were talking about Fairmead.
’

‘
I
’
m getting old. I have to say things when they come into my head, or else I forget them,
’
Mrs.
Yeedon said hardily.

‘
Well, my father sees to it that I get my two-yearly check-up,
’
Gwenny said evasively.

‘
That wasn
’
t what I asked you; I wanted to know when the last one was,
’
the old woman insisted.

‘
It
’
s almost time for another,
’
Gwenny said shortly, getting up.
‘
I
’
m going now, before you scold me any more.
’

‘
Where are you going? Home?
’

‘
It
’
s no use telling you yes, because you
’
ll watch me through your glasses and see me going to Fairmead,
’
said Gwenny, pulling a comical face.
‘
I shan
’
t be long there. It
’
s on my way home, actually, if I go round that way.
’

There was nothing
Mrs.
Yeedon could do to stop her, yet she had a queer presentiment that if Gwenny went to Fairmead this day, it would alter the whole course of her life.

She did watch Gwenny through the glasses, as far as she could. She lost her at times through the trees, then the girl
’
s fair head would appear over a gap in the hedge again, as she cycled along quiet subsidiary roads that were little more than lanes.
Mrs.
Yeedon felt the anxiety gripping at her. Dr
.
Kinglake would be out on his rounds somewhere, probably bringing on that Winnick girl
’
s baby, at Four Ends Farm.
Mrs.
Kinglake would be at one of her committee meetings. The old woman scowled as she thought of the rumour, that
Mrs.
Kinglake was searching around for suitable property for an old folks
’
home, so that she could be the permanent boss of it, the old woman told herself wrathfully.

Priscilla
?
She wrinkled her forehead and remembered that the nurse member of the Kinglake family had just gone back to her hospital. Northmoor District and General Hospital could well do without that saucy baggage, the old woman told herself fiercely. As to young Laurence Kinglake, he had probably returned to his hospital in London, where he was supposed to be doing his year as house physician—and
Mrs.
Yeedon pitied the patients. There was a playboy, if ever there was one. He
’
d never have a penny in the bank to bless himself with, she told herself wrathfully. Anyway, who, in that lot, could she hope to talk to about Gwenny? Two doctors and a nurse, and a mother who had been a part
—
trained nurse before her marriage, and not one of them could see that all was not right with young Gwenny.

Gwenny was out of sight now, so
Mrs.
Yeedon went back into her kitchen to make some jam, and to remember mistily the people who had once lived in Fairmead, when she herself had been young.

That was a favourite trick of Gwenny
’
s, and as the girl cycled up the rough track and through the broken iron gates, she pretended to herself that she was alive fifty years ago, the young mistress of the place.

It wasn
’
t easy to pretend. The drive was overgrown, and in places she had to get down off the bike and wheel it through a patch of bushes and undergrowth that had intruded right across the one-time neat gravel. Old storms had beaten soil across the drive, and now moss and weeds were everywhere.

She should have gone the back way, she thought ruefully; the way the present owners used. She wondered if old
Mrs.
Walker would be at the top window watching her difficult progress, as had happened last time she came over here.

She thought of things to say, to suit the expression on the old woman
’
s face. If
Mrs.
Walker looked tetchy, then Gwenny would say something like: I
’
ve only come to see if I can do some weeding,
Mrs.
Walker, and then the old woman would be mollified and tell Gwenny that it was nice to meet one young person at least who didn
’
t mind offering her services, and that before Gwenny started the weeding she must have a nice cup of tea and some seedy cake. Not that she would let Gwenny do any weeding—they would settle down to a nice chat, the weeding forgotten—but Gwenny was always hopeful. She knew just where she would start—in the old strawberry bed by the warm rosy brick wall that was beginning to crumble, just outside the mo
rn
ing-room window.

If the old lady looked smily and welcoming (unusual but not impossible) then Gwenny was prepared to have a nice long chat with her about the possibility of selling the place to someone other than her family, who only wanted it for old people. A prick of doubt assailed Gwenny about this. It now occurred to her that
Mrs.
Walker might like her mother
’
s idea—indeed,
Mrs.
Walker might be so eaten up with loneliness that she might sell on condition that she become the first inmate. People were funny. They changed. Gwenny felt personally that if she owned Fairmead, nothing would induce her to sell the old place to someone who would instal a lot of old people. Old people ought to go in a new and bright dwelling with ceilings that didn
’
t swoop away up into the shadows with a lot of cornices and twirly bits to collect the dust. Anyway, big gloomy rooms made people feel even more lonely, Gwenny decided.

Then she stopped short.
Mrs.
Walker was not at any of the windows. Gwenny stood there, her slender boy
’
s figure and frank open face belying her age, so that the tall young man who stood back in one of the top rooms thought, with a nettled frown, that this was just another schoolgirl in from one of the surrounding villages, with some excuse or other to spend time on the property. He had already had two of them, and as their excuses were respectively collecting butterflies and collecting material for an essay on crumbling property, he had had some difficulty in persuading them to go.

With a resigned sigh, he went down the shallow but quite lovely main staircase to the front door and stood staring at the girl.

She saw him and walked towards him, quickening her pace with the realization that all was not well, for someone like this to be here.

‘
What
’
s the matter
?’
she gasped.
‘
Is it
Mrs.
Walker? Is she ill
?’

‘
You know her?
’
He frowned thoughtfully. Now that the girl was closer to him, she didn
’
t seem quite such a schoolgirl. He studied the delicate features and the great blue eyes and he felt very much the same as
Mrs.
Yeedon had done not so long ago, except that
Mrs.
Yeedon had been anxious from affection for Gwenny, whereas he felt no more than a clinical interest in what appeared to be the vague and teasing symptom of a disease he had wanted to specialize in since he had first qualified.

‘
Oh, yes,
Mrs.
Walker
’
s a friend of mine,
’
Gwenny said.
‘
Are you a doctor?
’
He looked like a doctor, he talked like a doctor; he was exactly how Gwenny privately thought a doctor should look. Not like her handsome, frivolous brother Laurence, not like her stout, balding, often tetchy father, but tall, strong, dark in a clever sort of way, terribly responsible and sure of himself, and indicating a strong interest in any ill person who might place themselves in his hands. Gwenny, who often felt not quite well, decided that this was just the sort of doctor she would like.