Then Linda became aware that Doctor Cooper had taken over the conversation and was leading it into the realm of the abstract, and the Commander was being invited to dwell on the relative values of inanimate objects as against the human spirit. He caught Linda’s eye.
The crafty fellow, she thought, he’s on my side after all, as she heard him quietly launch into a simple and straightforward account of the events surrounding the drama of the ornament, and the complications and distress that had grown out of fear of the Commander’s anger.
Linda saw the old man’s face grow grim as he listened but he stayed quiet until the doctor had finished, then he spoke with difficulty.
‘Very well, Cooper, you have made your point. I appreciate that whatever happened was an accident, but what business had those children in my long gallery in the first place!’
‘That is a question you might ask them with some profit,’ suggested John Cooper.
‘Very well,’ said the Commander, after a pause, and he sent for the two girls. ‘And here is the key to the gallery, Mrs Dibley,’ he added. ‘Tell them to bring what they put in the window-box.’
Linda felt a pang of pity as the white-faced little figures entered the room. Erica had the pieces of the ornament clutched to her chest.
The Commander rose and turned towards the bookshelf and when he spoke his voice was unsteady. ‘Put what you have brought on the table,’ he said.
Erica did so, and the two children stood with their eyes fixed on the tall man who remained with his back to them, struggling to control his temper.
In the pause, Linda glanced at John Cooper and saw him take up the three tiny china heads and set them into the sockets which formed their necks. He looked up at her triumphantly. It was obvious the heads were meant to be loose. The piece wasn’t broken at all!
Linda opened her mouth to speak, but the doctor gestured her to silence. The Commander was speaking.
‘Erica, why did you go into the long gallery?’
‘Because I wanted to show Jenny the lovely things,’ said Erica, simply. ‘Because they’re so beautiful.’
There was another silence as the Commander absorbed the implication of her words.
Drawing on all her courage, Jenny spoke up. ‘We’re very, very sorry, sir. Truly.’
‘Honestly, Grandfather,’ added Erica. ‘I know you loved it. And ‒ and it was so pretty!’ She burst into tears.
‘I accept your apology,’ said the Commander, and though stiff, his voice was not cold.
Only then did John Cooper speak.
‘Surely, Commander, this isn’t broken is it?’ he said innocently.
It was true. The delicate heads were separate pieces, designed to move when stirred by a draught, as the Commander took great pleasure in explaining.
The two children were enraptured as the old collector set the piece in motion and the tiny musicians appeared to nod in time as they played.
‘I never knew!’ cried Erica. Then she frowned. ‘But of course there’s no breeze in the long gallery.’
The Commander looked down at the two girls as they bent over the ornament, smiling delightedly.
‘I won’t put it back there,’ he said. ‘We’ll have it out on the grand piano in the sitting room. Then in the summer, when the windows are open, we’ll all enjoy it.’
Later as Mrs Dibley showed the two doctors out, she touched John Cooper’s arm. ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ she said, ‘for handling the matter.’
Just as well it wasn’t left to me, thought Linda, or right now we’d be fleeing down the drive with the Commander pursuing us with a genuine fifteenth-century gilt-inlaid double-barrelled blunderbuss!
Chapter Four
KITH AND KIN
The level-crossing was closed.
Linda stopped her car and, as she sat waiting, thumbed through the file of one of the patients she had just visited. There were certain symptoms that puzzled her and she made a note to look them up immediately she got back to the surgery. This failing to help, she’d talk to Doctor Cooper, who was always prepared to give her the benefit of his long experience.
A freight train trundled past and the gates shuddered open again. Linda drove through. As she did, she glanced automatically along the line and saw two small boys scrambling down the bank. She suspected at once the game they were playing.
Parking the car safely she got out and went back, but as she walked along the verge towards them, they ran away, leaving two flattened pennies behind as evidence that she had been right about their occupation. Linda followed the boys up the bank and sprinted across a field after them. She’d been athletics champion of her school and was gratified to find she still had a useful burst of speed.
The boys disappeared round the back of an old shed and when Linda reached it were nowhere to be seen. A suppressed scuffling, however, gave them away, and Linda realised they had taken refuge on the roof of the hut.
‘Now listen to me, lads, that’s a very dangerous game, playing about on the railway line.’ Linda spoke with authority. Hadn’t she, as a child, been the ringleader in most of the mischief her gang had got into?
‘I know it’s fun but you’d be amazed how fast ‒’ A sharp cry stopped her.
‘Here, miss, look, quick!’
The interruption was so urgent that Linda took it seriously.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘There’s someone dead in this shed!’
The second boy spoke: ‘Yes! We can see him through this window on the roof!’ Their voices were shrill with fright.
The boys climbed down and joined Linda at the door of the shed, where she knocked, then tried the handle. It was locked. As she rattled at it, they all heard the low growl of a dog coming from inside. It was the deep-throated warning of a large animal and the boys wriggled with alarm. Linda was relieved that they did not desert her.
‘It’s an old man, lying on the floor, miss, all white.’
They were patently telling the truth.
‘We must break in,’ said Linda. The boys’ eyes lit up with excitement and they joined in the operation with enthusiasm.
It was not difficult, for the wood was rotten, and as the door swung open, Linda could see the figure lying on the floor, obviously fallen out of a turned-over camp cot. The hut was roughly furnished as a dwelling and apart from the heap of dingy bedding looked simple but orderly.
All this they observed instantly, but before anyone could move, a great dog had leapt forward and planted itself between them and the body of the old man.
It was a brown dog, a cross perhaps between a Retriever and Alsatian. Its shoulders were powerful and right now its lips were curled back over its teeth in an ominous snarl. There was no doubt it intended to defend its master against all comers. It lunged and the boys squealed and dodged back.
Linda went for help.
An hour later, an RSPCA officer had secured the dog with a loop and rod; and ambulance men were able to load the man onto a stretcher.
The two boys had remained glued to the scene throughout.
‘He’s not dead,’ said Linda. ‘Not quite. Do you know him?’
They shook their heads, and watched as the frail figure was borne off on the first part of its journey to Yelchester Cottage Hospital.
As the doors of the ambulance slammed to, the dog squirmed violently and broke free. It stood an instant in indecision then turned and streaked away across the countryside.
The old man had pneumonia and was suffering from malnutrition and neglect, but he began to recover slowly.
‘He’s obviously been living as a complete recluse,’ said the Matron to Linda. ‘He’s a well-spoken man and everyone likes him, but we can’t get him to name any relative or friends who might be concerned about him. Would you have a word with him? He says his name is Henry Prowse.’
But Linda was no luckier. Although he was otherwise friendly he was not to be drawn about his background. His main concern was about his dog. He was very upset
and worried about it and when he found Linda knew what it looked like he begged her to keep watch for it on her rounds.
Linda felt sorry that the old man should have lost his only living companion and a day or two later she drove out specially to look round the area, starting at the broken-down shed.
The place had been stripped of all the man’s smaller possessions, which had been taken away for safe-keeping, and it looked damp and derelict. The dog was not there; but in poking about under the bed to make sure, Linda came across a photograph which immediately caught her interest. It had been cut out of a newspaper and was of a man of about fifty, well-dressed and important-looking, and strongly resembling the old man in the Cottage Hospital.
Thoughtfully, Linda tucked it into her handbag.
She went back to the car and drove round the lanes, stopping at one or two cottages to make enquiries about the dog. Eventually she found someone who thought they knew where it was and directed her to a ramshackle little dwelling hidden in a spinney.
At her knock there was a hurried scuffle inside and a furtive movement of curtains, then the door opened. A lean, weathered man stood in tattered breeches and faded woollen shirt, smiling enquiringly. Behind him, Linda could see a woman stooping over a baby in a cot, three other children ‒ two of whom were the boys from the railway line ‒ and a young man of about twenty who was lurking in a corner. All the faces were turned towards her with interest.
The old man’s dog rose up from the hearth and joined the audience, wagging its tail welcomingly.
For the next half hour, Linda was entertained most hospitably. It seemed the boys had found the dog in an exhausted condition and brought it home, where it had settled down with the family. The man of the house, who introduced himself as Tom Greenway, presented his wife who gave Linda a drink of tea in a chipped enamel mug and ‒ when she knew Linda was a doctor ‒ took the opportunity to consult her on the children’s health. The youngsters grinned at her cheerfully as she checked them over, discovering that apart from several layers of grime they all appeared to be in perfect condition. The young man was introduced as Joe, a nephew from London.
It was chaotic but there was genuine warmth about the place and Mrs Greenway was upset that nobody had known about the lonely old man, and at once offered to care for his dog until he was well.
This seemed a good idea and Linda accepted; she rose. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and she was amazed to see the whole family immediately riveted with apprehension.
Tom Greenway stepped to the window and peered out, then turning he made a quick gesture towards Joe, who promptly shot out of the back exit with the silent speed of a rodent.
When the front door was opened it revealed a policeman on the threshold. It was the local man from Stoke Dabenham and he recognised Linda. He passed the time of day with her as she took her leave, then turned to Tom Greenway.
‘I wonder if I could have a word with you, Mr Greenway,’ she heard him saying heavily, as she went off through the trees.
That evening Doctor Cooper invited her over to the big house for a drink after surgery, and was highly amused by the story.
‘Tom Greenway,’ he chuckled, ‘comes from a long line of villains. He’s the straightest of the lot ‒ and he’s a poacher!’
‘I rather liked them,’ said Linda. ‘And the children are happy and bonny enough.’
‘So they should be ‒ living off Colonel Holroyd’s pheasant!’
‘Anyway old Mr Prowse will be delighted about his dog. It’s quite happy and they’ll look after it till he comes out of hospital. Though what’s to become of him then I wonder? He can’t go back to that shack.’
‘An Old People’s Home.’
Linda frowned.
‘There’s a very pleasant one at ‒’
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ said Linda. But she was thinking of that dog.
John Cooper refilled her glass, then cut across her thoughts by reaching a gilt-edged card down from the mantelpiece and waving it in front of her.
‘Enough shop-talk,’ he said, ‘are you still interested in going to this?’
It was an invitation to a Chamber of Trade Ball in Plymouth. The two doctors had each had an invitation.
‘My son Peter’s coming down that weekend and if you’ve no other partner you’d like to take, I suggest you might go together. How do you feel about that?’
‘Why don’t we all go,’ said Linda.
Linda drove over to Yelchester to get her curls tamed and buy a new lipstick for the Ball. The hairdresser lifted her thick shiny hair into a Grecian style. A few tendrils escaped and softened the line round her face. Linda regarded the effect as satisfactory and was gratified when she received admiring looks as she walked through the corridors of the Cottage Hospital, she was making a quick call on Mr Prowse to set his mind at rest about the dog.
The old man was so grateful and relieved that Linda was more than glad she’d taken the trouble. Nevertheless, when she showed him the photograph she had found in the hut, he at once became withdrawn and gave her only evasive answers about it.
Linda’s dress was white chiffon printed with an art nouveau pattern of flowers at the hem. It had been an extravagance designed to please that other young man before she had discovered he was lost to her. She had not worn the dress since. But the memory was fading and as she and Peter set off for Plymouth, she was aware that they made an elegant couple and she was all set for an enjoyable evening.
John Cooper had decided not to go in the end, but his son knew a great many people present and obviously enjoyed introducing Linda to them. Soon they were part of a large, friendly group, laughing and talking noisily.
Then, across the dance floor, Linda saw a familiar face. For a moment she thought it must be someone she knew, then realised with a shock where she had seen the man before. There was no doubt whatever, it was on the scrap of newspaper she’d taken from the hut.
‘Who is that man?’ she asked, urgently.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Peter Cooper.
‘Can you find out?’
Peter dutifully moved off to make some enquiries and returned a few minutes later to inform Linda that the gentleman in question was a very important local executive who owned a chain of launderettes and dry cleaners, also a typing agency and employment bureau, and three supermarkets. His first wife had died some years ago and he’d married a wealthy Plymouth girl.
‘He’s a very big potato indeed hereabouts.’
‘Yes,’ said Linda, ‘but his name? What’s his name?’
‘Prowse.’
Linda told Peter about the old man in the hospital. Reluctantly he agreed that she should have a word with the younger Mr Prowse who was at that moment dancing past with a smart, young, fair-haired woman in blue.
When the music finished Linda went over to the man and asked if she could talk to him in the adjoining lobby. The woman accompanied him and Peter joined them at Linda’s request. When they had all introduced themselves, the man ordered some drinks then turned to Linda smiling in polite enquiry.
But as Linda broke the news to him about old Mr Prowse his expression changed, hardening into formality.
‘Yes. It must be my father,’ he said. ‘I lost touch with him some time ago.’
‘He’s practically better now,’ said Linda. ‘After being very ill.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Prowse, without emotion.
‘There’s some concern about what will happen to him when he comes out of hospital.’
Linda waited. Prowse did not speak, so she went on.
‘There are Old Folks’ Homes of course ‒’
Still no reaction.
‘But there’s the question of his dog, and he’s very anxious to keep it.’
At last the man spoke. ‘I suppose you think I should offer him a home with us, but it’s not that simple. We have a comparatively small house and in any case I do a great deal of entertaining and my spare rooms are used by guests most of the time
.’
‘In any case, Charles,’ said his wife, ‘a dog would be quite impossible.’ She turned her large blue eyes on Peter. ‘I have three already, and they’ve been most dreadfully spoiled and I’m afraid they’re not in the least friendly to other dogs. You know how it is.’
‘That’s a fact,’ said Prowse, smiling indulgently at Mrs Prowse. ‘No, I really don’t see it being convenient to have the old chap at home. But of course we will do everything we can to help otherwise, won’t we Melinda?’
‘Oh naturally!’ said the young woman, nodding her blonde head emphatically and making to rise.
‘I’ll take your address, if I may,’ said Linda. ‘And ask Matron to get in touch with you.’
‘Such enthusiasm at finding his long-lost dad,’ said Linda.
Peter drew her on to the dance floor. ‘My darling girl, do switch off ‒ just for tonight.’
Linda found she rather liked that light term of endearment. And she had no aversion to the arm that was holding her closer than was strictly necessary.
Over Peter’s shoulder she glimpsed the man Prowse dancing with his wife ‒ their feet in perfect accord ‒ their faces scowling angrily at each other.
‘I wonder what the real story is behind it all,’ said Linda.
‘Behind what, dear heart? Life?’
‘No, the Prowses.’
‘I do not know. And right now I do not care!’ announced Peter, and his arm loosened around her.
‘All right. All right,’ said Linda, and tickled the back of his neck.
Peter grinned at her. Then the music changed to a quicker mood, and they parted to dance separately to the beat.
Linda had to leave it there.
She and Peter rejoined their party and thereafter danced the night away.
At her door Peter kissed her goodnight. It was a light kiss but it made her tremble. He stepped back from her, and hesitated. They were both quite still. Poised. Then he made off quickly into the dark.
The Country Doctor: Captivating tales from a young GP's case notes Page 6