New Doctor at Northmoor (4 page)

Laundry was scattered around the room.
Mrs.
Otts
’
sister-in-law obliged with the washing and should have collected it all today and taken it away, but Gwenny knew for a fact that
Mrs.
Otts
’
sister-in-law had one of her
‘
attacks
.’
The screws, it was called, and she did appear to be in pain, and the only thing that ever reduced the pain was a trip into Uxmarket on the two-thirty bus every Wednesday for Bingo at the old cinema in Market Street.

Priscilla
’
s room was a mess and smelt horribly of stale make-up. There wasn
’
t much Gwenny could do about it without risking an awful row when her sister came home for forty-eight hours, and she was due almost any moment. Gwenny wandered into her brother
’
s room and, disheartened by now, began to gather up his papers into a neat pile to put on his desk. In the end, she bundled everything into the desk and pushed the flap up, then got a duster and went over the place. It looked a lot better, but was unfamiliar enough for her to have a prick of doubt. It wasn
’
t a very nice room. The wall of the next door house blocked the view of the Green, and he needed new curtains and bed cover, but as he wasn
’
t home very often, Gwenny supposed her mother didn
’
t consider it worth the expense.

The spare room wasn
’
t made up, but Gwenny could and did remove the thick layer of dust on everything, and she did get out the carpet sweeper and go over the strip of worn carpet along the landing, but after that she felt like doing nothing else but lying flat on her back on her own narrow bed and wonder what was to become of her.

Something wasn
’
t right, but it was so nebulous that she wouldn
’
t know how to explain it to her father. Unless she fainted at his feet, he wouldn
’
t think anything was wrong with her. There had been an occasion when that had happened, and he had seemed concerned, but there had been a telephone call. She had been put on a couch in the dining-room and he had gone to the telephone, but it had been
Mr.
Wilkes up at Overberry Farm, who had caught his hand in the combine harvester, and there was no arguing round that one. Gwenny had heard her father bark some instructions into the telephone, things about stopping the flow of blood and getting the ambulance, then he had belted out to the garage because
Mr.
Wilkes
’
wife was almost ready to start a baby and she had gone to pieces. A little thing like Gwenny fainting was soon forgotten.

True, her father had seemed concerned about her when he had got back, but it was four hours later, and her mother had said,
‘
Oh, don
’
t fuss, dear. She
’
s all right now. I expect it was the heat,
’
and there the matter had rested.

Yet something ought to be done. She made up sentences of explanation, such as,
‘
You know that time I fainted, Father, when
Mr.
Wilkes caught his hand in
the combine harvester
—’
but of course, that was too
long a sentence. Her father would either be called out again or discover it was time for surgery or have to finish writing out some bills, and would beg her to tell him some other time. That was always the way.

She could, of course, say,
‘
I feel rotten
!’
but then he would look alarmed, take her into the surgery, get out his stethoscope and ask all the horrid personal routine questions he asked his patients, and quite suddenly Gwenny found she didn
’
t want to have to answer her father. It wasn
’
t so bad when she was a child, but not now. She was adult, and he would accept that. He wouldn
’
t accept it in any number of ways, like giving her an allowance or letting her get a job. He still insisted on giving her pocket money—a very small amount at that!

She fell asleep wondering drearily if all the daughters of country doctors had the same problem, and she dreamed of the young doctor who was buying Fairmead taking her into his surgery and telling her that he could tell, just by looking at her, that she was going to die, and very soon, and that nothing and no one could save her.

She awoke feeling tight all over and very scared. It was dusk and there were a lot of voices in the house. Her mother
’
s voice, raised in argument with
Mrs.
Otts.

Mrs.
Otts was saying,
‘I
never saw the place like it before, no, I never! No, I
’
m not saying it
’
s as burglars getting in—what
’
s here to steal, that
’
s what I
’
d like to know
!’

‘
Don
’
t be impertinent,
Mrs.
Otts!
’
Oh, dear, Gwenny thought, as she heard her mother say that: she
’
s in one of
those
moods.

She dragged herself to her feet and went to the stairhead to look down at them. Mummy must have had a bad day at her meeting. Gwenny struggled to remember which one it was, but she couldn
’
t. She called down,
‘
If you
’
re talking about the place being tidied up, I did it. What
’
s wrong with that?
’

‘
Well, I never! Saucebox
!’
Mrs.
Otts observed.
‘
It
’
s my job, and I
’
ll thank you, young lady, not to get out my carpet sweeper and leave it on the landing for honest folks to fall over, and like as not break it so I get the blame.
’

‘
Did I leave it out? I
’
m sorry. I went to lie down.
’

‘
Worn out, I daresay, by the unaccustomed bit of trying to do housework, I suppose
,’
Mrs.
Otts said, with heavy sarcasm.
‘
It
’
s my job to do the house, and I won
’
t have interference or else I leave
.’

‘
There
’
s no question of your leaving,
Mrs.
Otts!
’
Mrs.
Kinglake said distractedly.
‘
Why do you have to be such a nuisance, Gwenny?
’

‘
I thought I was helping. I
’
ve removed some dust
—’

‘
If you
’
re saying, miss, as I
’
m dirty—
’
Mrs.
Otts shrilled indignantly.

‘
Oh, do give over,
’
Gwenny begged, holding on tight to the newel post.
‘
You
’
re always saying you haven
’
t time to tidy up, so I thought I
’
d try, as I had nothing to do. Has anyone looked to see what the rooms up here look like?
’

‘
No, I haven
’
t,
’
Mrs.
Kinglake said crossly.
‘
But the rooms down here don
’
t look up to much
—’

‘
I didn
’
t get round to them, but I did tidy the top ones. You might look at them, to see how they seem,
’
Gwenny said, shocked to find that she was near tears. She went back into her bedroom and stood looking out of the window, then heard her father
’
s voice, as he came in at the front door. He hated to find a row going on, the minute he set foot in the house.

Now there were three voices going at it. How on earth could she go and tell him she felt very peculiar and ask him to help her, when he had been greeted like this?

She dragged herself downstairs again. They stopped talking and looked at her. Somehow, though she didn
’
t know they were thinking it, she had become older in an intangible way. She was still wearing the same shirt and pinafore dress that was much too short for her—not, as it happened, from the dictates of fashion but because she had grown out of it—but no one had said anything about her having a new dress and she knew better than to ask. She still wore no stockings and childish sandals which she had almost worn out, but as her feet had stopped growing, there had seemed no need to ask for a new pair. Her hair hung untidily as usual about her face, but this, too, happened to coincide with the dictates of fashion.

It was a puzzled trio of adults who found themselves thinking that, without anything having been done to alter Gwenny
’
s exterior, somehow she looked different. Her eyes had an adult anger in them and her face seemed to have fallen in, and lost its eager-child look. She wasn
’
t young Gwenny any longer.

Mrs.
Otts was moved to say,
‘
Well, perhaps I shouldn
’
t have shouted at you, Miss Gwenny. You tried to help, I suppose.
’

And
Mrs.
Kinglake said,
‘
You could do with a nice cup of tea, I should think. I know
I
could. It
’
s been a most tiring day
!’
But she trailed off doubtfully, and that wasn
’
t like her. Her usual manner was a forthright one, and devil take the hindmost.

Dr.
Kinglake opened his mouth to say, rather awkwardly, that Gwenny didn
’
t look too good and she
’
d better go into the surgery with him. But it never got said.

A car drew up noisily at the gate and Laurence leapt out, slamming the door after him.

‘
Laurence! What the devil are you doing at home at this hour?
’
Dr.
Kinglake asked, and went out to the gate to meet him. No one would have realized that his apparent preference for his son, which always made him go out to the gate to meet him, was not inspired by love, but by fear. He was always afraid to hear that Laurence had been kicked out of his hospital, or that something else had gone wrong, and he always felt he wanted to be first to be on the spot, to hear it, private and personal.

‘
You haven
’
t
?’
he began, but Laurence cut him
short.

He seemed bigger, more beefy, Gwenny thought faintly. Well, different, somehow, from last time. Not different for the better, either. A little more belligerent, perhaps? She couldn
’
t put a name to it.

She heard Laurence say shortly to her father,
‘
Just a couple of days off—swapped with Tennant. Wanted to come home and talk something over with you.
’

The two men came in. Gwenny faded backwards into the breakfast-room and thought about it. It was disquieting to find that Laurence even wanted to come home for a talk with his father. What had gone wrong
?

Mrs.
Kinglake was talking about her meeting that day.
‘
The most awful thing
’
s happened,
’
she began.

Gwenny waited for it, and it came.

‘
That wretched estate agent knew perfectly well that we wanted Fairmead and why, but he
’
s let it go! Over our heads
!’

There was a chorus of angry protest.
Dr.
Kinglake felt as strongly as his wife about the need for an old people
’
s home in the district, and if he didn
’
t like her methods of going about getting it, he said nothing. He himself had made application through the usual channels and knew it would have to be a private affair at the moment as the authorities weren
’
t willing to stump up for a home under their auspices. Whether it was through lack of money or unwillingness to part with what they had, he didn
’
t know, but they had said loud and clear that they didn
’
t consider there was sufficient need for one. Those local council meetings had been noisy and revealing, but he knew when they were final. And Ancaster wasn
’
t getting any younger.