Promise the Doctor

by Marjorie Norrell

  ‘Well’—as usual, Sylvia left it to her brother to answer the question for them both—‘I think I’m being a little too ambitious ... for Mother’s sake, I mean. What I want is ... your line, Mr. Belding, but it means a long time before I’m anything like independent!’

  ‘It can be managed,’ Mr. Belding assured him gravely, ‘if you are willing to work and remain interested in Law. We must have a chat together some time in the near future, and see what can be done. In the meantime,’ his eyes twinkled, ‘work on those G.C.E. examinations! They are of first importance, you know. And what about you, young lady?’

  ‘She wants to teach,’ Rex told him, giving a glance of brotherly amusement at his sister’s small, intent face. ‘She wants to teach infants and juniors ... older ones might run her around too much!’

  ‘I should imagine the boot might well be on the other foot,’ Mr. Belding observed. ‘There is a great deal of patience required in the teaching of tiny children, I am sure, but both of you have worthwhile ambitions, and I’m certain, if you will do your share by working hard enough to pass the necessary examinations as they come along, we can quite look forward to each of you achieving your professional desires in the course of time.’ Unexpectedly he turned to Pete, not quite sure whether he was a relative or a friend. Whoever he was, Mr. Belding had already decided, he was well enough known to the little family as to be looked upon as one of its members.

  ‘And what about you, young man?’ he invited Pete’s confidence. ‘Where do you fit into all this change?’

  ‘I’m a ... a friend,’ Pete said slowly, as memories of just how good the friendship of the Benyon family had proved to be in his life. ‘I ... I’ve lived here for years. I expect I’ll have to look round now for somewhere else to live ... somewhere I can afford to live, until I get a little further up the ladder.’

  ‘And your job?’ Mr. Belding asked, sounding, Pete decided, so really interested and friendly that he had none of his usual hesitation in confiding in this stranger.

  ‘I’ve recently qualified as an accountant,’ he explained, ‘but although the firm I’m with have given me a position with them, I can’t look forward to much advancement for a year at least.’

  ‘I see.’ Mr. Belding eyed him for a moment, and sensed the bond which bound this young man to the family with whom he had lived for so much of his life. ‘Would you be willing to enter industry?’ he queried, ‘in your own line, of course?’

  ‘Yes,’ Pete said promptly. ‘I rather think I would like that.’

  ‘Well, I can’t, of course, promise anything, but I think I may be able to help before the summer is through. Try and get yourself fixed up for the present time, and then we’ll see what can be done.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Belding. Thank you very much.’ Pete smiled, looking round at the others. ‘I should hate to lose touch with the Benyons. They’ve been so very good to me.’

  ‘There’s no need to worry or to think we shan’t always have a place for you, Pete,’ Aileen said quickly. ‘Mrs. Parrott, just across the road, will be glad to look after you and she won’t charge very much. What is worrying me’—her grey-blue eyes glanced round from face to face—‘is how I’m going to help! If the house is so big, Cousin Emma won’t be able to manage alone, and if I don’t take some sort of job, even with the rent and the rates and so forth accounted for, it’s going to be difficult for the youngsters to do what they want to do in the way of their careers ... and I’d hate to disappoint them.’

  ‘There’s no need for anyone to be disappointed, Mother.’ Joy looked up from the letter she had just finished reading, her eyes shining. ‘Things couldn’t be better for any of us,’ she declared. ‘Miss Barnes writes here about Mr. and Mrs. Wrenshaw, the couple who live in at Fernbank. Mr. Wrenshaw looks after the garden and the outplaces, tends to the central heating and the open log fires Miss Barnes writes we’ll find necessary in the winter months. He helps his wife with some of the household duties, is a general handyman and so forth, and Mrs. Wrenshaw is, I quote from the letter, “a good cook and a capable housekeeper whose friend, a Miss Angel, always comes to help at spring-cleaning time and when there is anything extra to be done. If you can manage a little dusting or suchlike as an extra hand around the house Joy read on, still quoting from the letter, ‘ “you will be able to continue with your nursing, the career for which you have such a wonderful gift...” So,’ Joy concluded, looking round as she folded up her letter, ‘if Cousin Emma goes on as she is doing, and this Miss Angel comes when we need her, there’ll be nothing to stop you opening your own typing and what-not business as you’ve always wanted! You know you don’t really like domestic chores, and this seems the ideal solution!’

  ‘For everyone but me!’ Lana said suddenly and sadly. ‘This is going to be marvellous for everyone, but all it will mean to me will be to have this couch in another room, in another town, away from everything and everyone I know.’

  ‘And a lovely garden in which to spend the coming summer,’ Mr. Belding said before anyone else could speak. ‘The best of attention, as you are getting all the time, will still be there, but you’ll have the added benefit of the sea air, the change of surroundings, and a new doctor who may have some suggestions to offer. At least,’ he decided, ‘you will not be any worse off for your move!’

  There was no denying the wisdom of his words, and Lana lapsed into silence, knowing she was secretly as thrilled as the rest of them but that she felt so alone, so left out of things. Maybe Mr. Belding was right, and as time passed she too might find some benefit from this unexpected change, but she would not allow herself to become enthusiastic. Ever since Tony had walked out of her life she had ceased to be enthusiastic about anything. She still followed his career through the newspapers, the career she had hoped to share. He had gone to London, and was already making a name for himself in the world of photography, but now he had other models, other girls in whom he was undoubtedly interested, and she suspected he had forgotten her very existence months ago.

  ‘Well’—Mr. Belding consulted his watch and rose, pushing back his chair—‘I am afraid I really must be on my way. Thank you very much for your hospitality. I will leave the set of keys which belonged to Miss Barnes. Mr. and Mrs. Wrenshaw have their own, of course. Shall you be along to see your property before you remove, Miss Benyon?’

  ‘I have half a day off next Thursday,’ Joy told him, ‘and that’s Pete’s half day too. Perhaps he’d drive me over?’ She glanced at Pete, who nodded. ‘So that’s all right. There’s just one point, Mr. Belding. Miss Barnes says in her letter that Fernbank is what she meant by “my dearest possession” and that she trusts me to see to it that the house and grounds are not used in any way which will take away any of the select and beautiful aspects of the town she loved. Just what do you suppose she means by that? I do understand she took my promise to mean that, being trusted with the house, I would never sell it or anything like that, but it’s this wording I can’t quite understand.’

  ‘A little while ago,’ Mr. Belding said gravely, ‘some of the wealthiest of the town’s businessmen decided to form a syndicate to provide us with a holiday village of bungalows, shops, entertainments and the like which most of the citizens would prefer to do without. I think Miss Barnes had reason to suspect they were more than a little interested in her house and the grounds, and the strip of ground which adjoins it and runs down to the road which leads to the sea. I know that before her sisters died they tried to purchase that particular piece of land, but the man who owns it was not interested in selling. He is a member of this group who want to form the syndicate.’

  ‘If Miss Barnes didn’t wish them to have the house and grounds then I shall make it my business to make certain her wishes are respected. You can be certain of that!’ Joy told him.

  ‘I’m so pleased.’ Mr. Belding nodded, well satisfied. ‘I felt from the moment we met that Miss Barnes had made a good choice in entrusting her responsibilities and her property to you! I shall
look forward to seeing you if you have time to call in at my office on Thursday, and if not’—he handed her a card—‘perhaps you will contact me there before you are ready to move, and if there is any way in which I can assist you I shall be only too pleased to do so.’

  He said goodbye, and the entire family accompanied Joy to the door to wave goodbye, the entire family with the exception of Lana. They returned to the house, chattering together ‘like a bunch of magpies’, as Cousin Emma put it, and if Lana and Pete were the most silent members of the little household, their silence was not commented upon, since the others were too full of discussion to notice very much.

  There was so much to be done in the few days before the Thursday. Aileen felt very guilty about giving up the extra book-keeping she had undertaken only a month or so previously in an effort to make a little more money, but she had begun to look so tired that Joy was thankful for her mother’s sake that this early rising and extra work in addition to her post as secretary to a firm in Wilborough would soon be a thing of the past.

  There was the matter of the twins and their further education. Aileen went alone—as she had done so much for her family entirely alone—to see the headmaster of the co-educational High School where they had both attended since passing their examination from the junior school. Mr. Appleby was kind and helpful, sending along a letter for the twins to take to their new school, explaining which examining board the twins were to take their forthcoming examinations, so that if their new school had not the same syllabus there would be no confusion when their new teachers helped them through their next and final term before the examination dates.

  The rent of the house in Cranberry Terrace was paid to the end of the quarter, so there was no worry about that side of affairs. By the time she relaxed in the seat beside Pete on their way to Vanmouth, Joy felt life had already taken a more rapid and more interesting turn for all of them.

  ‘I hope Mr. Belding can find something for you in Vanmouth, Pete,’ she said, once Wilborough was left behind and they were speeding through the green countryside, dappled with the thin April sunshine. ‘It won’t seem like home without you, it seems you’ve always been there.’

  ‘I have, just about.’ Pete frowned at the road. ‘It won’t seem right going across the road to Mrs. Parrot’s every evening, but she was very sweet about it when I went to see her. She remembers my folks very well, which is more than I do. It seems to me that I’ve always been with you and the others. It’ll be like parting from a real family of my own, once you’re all gone ... especially you, Joy.’

  ‘You must come and see us just as soon as we’re settled in. And you’ll be able to have your holidays at Vanmouth as well,’ Joy said quickly. ‘Oh, look over there! Isn’t that a skylark? It seemed to come down from such a great height and straight to the ground.’

  ‘It’ll have a nest not far away.’ Pete liked to study birds whenever they were in the country. ‘They never come close enough for one to trace them as easily as all that, though.’ He went on to talk at some length of the various means by which birds and other forms of wild life disguised the entrances to their homes as a protective measure, and for the time being his attention was diverted. Joy heaved a sigh of thankfulness. She loved Pete, but as an older brother. Until recently she had thought he felt the same way about her, but now she was not so sure, and she did not want any emotional complications in addition to the domestic changes into which they had all been plunged willy-nilly.

  ‘When I fall in love, ‘she thought as the car engine hummed beneath the bonnet and the miles fell behind them, ‘I’ll know, I’m sure. I seem to know I’ll feel ... differently, right from the beginning. It won’t be Pete or anyone I’ve known all my life. It’ll be someone right out of the blue ... but I know I’ll feel differently about him, whoever he is, right from the beginning!’

  CHAPTER V

  Vanmouth, of which she had heard much but never visited, proved a delightful surprise to Joy. The town was larger than she had expected, the traffic brisk and busy. There were several important-looking modern blocks of flats and offices which contrasted strongly with other parts of the town where the buildings were somewhat older although in an excellent state of preservation. Every road and traffic island bore its banks of flowers, and the streets were wide and tree-shaded. Around the town itself were cliffs on three sides, with what looked like a veritable forest of trees sweeping down almost to the sea and golden shore which made the fourth side of the township.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Joy breathed as Pete slowed down to ask someone directions as to their route. ‘I think we’re going to like living here. I wonder where St Lucy’s is? Matron said it was in Vanmouth itself, but she didn’t say where.’

  ‘I expect someone will be able to tell us.’ Pete turned into a wide road and slowed down to ask further directions of a passer-by.

  They had not much further to go. Ahead they could see the gleam and glitter of the sun-flecked sea, but the road curved more than once, with little side roads on either side, and, as Pete remarked as they turned again into a wide half crescent, the distance through the town and the distance of the shore to the nearest houses, must both be equally deceptive.

  ‘Mr. Belding said Fernbank stood alone, almost the last house in its road before the sea ... no, the last house,’ she corrected herself quickly, remembering about the piece of land beyond her future home which the Misses Barnes had tried in vain to purchase. ‘Do you think we’re on the right track, Pete?’

  ‘Navigation correct, ma’am!’ Pete swung the little car to a halt before a tall, old-fashioned pair of iron gates with the legend ‘Fernbank’ woven into the design as part of the decoration. ‘I should say we’re here.’

  Joy descended from the mini suddenly feeling shy and just a little afraid. After all, whatever Mr. and Mrs. Wrenshaw proved to be as people it seemed she was in honour bound now to be responsible for their welfare, since that was how Miss Barnes had taken the promise she had made to ‘look after my interests...’

  ‘And I will,’ Joy vowed mentally, pulling herself together. ‘I can’t let Miss Barnes down now! Not after she’s put so much trust in me!’

  With Pete closely beside her she walked firmly along the well-kept path to the wide, highly polished front door and pressed the bell. Almost before it had stopped ringing, or so it seemed, the door was opened and a small, round woman, barely reaching to Joy’s shoulder but with a healthy, rosy face beaming with welcome, stood there, holding the door wide open.

  ‘Come in, please do!’ she began at once, her voice crisp and firm and not in the least like Cousin Emma’s often weary-sounding tones. ‘You must be Sister Benyon?’ She looked enquiringly at Joy and then back at Pete. ‘Miss Barnes wrote to us about you, before she was too ill to write much at all, that is. She said you had the kindest and most compassionate face in the whole of her experience, and that a body only had to take a look at you to know their life would be as safe in your hands as it could be anywhere on this earth! And this will be your brother, will it? It ran in my mind that Miss Barnes wrote that he and your sister—one of them—were still at school, but it’s months ago now, and I forget so many things these days!’

  ‘That’s one thing you haven’t forgotten, Mrs. Wrenshaw,’ Joy smiled, her blushes at the unexpected words about herself from the old lady beginning to fade a little. ‘My brother and his twin sister, Sylvia, are both still at school. This is a friend of ours who has lived with the family for a number of years, Pete Bradley,’ she completed the introduction. ‘We shall have to look around Vanmouth and try and find work for him here,’ she ended in a teasing voice. ‘It won’t seem the same home without Pete around!’

  She stopped abruptly, covered in confusion by the look in Pete’s eyes, a look she had never intended to call forth where she and Pete were concerned. Hastily she plunged into talk of the house, details of the furnishings, wondering how much extra furniture the family would need to fill all these rooms, but Mrs. Wrenshaw seemed t
o sense what was running through her mind.

  ‘There’s more furniture in these rooms than we know what to do with, Miss Benyon, and that’s a fact,’ she said after introducing her husband, a small, neatly built man with snow-white hair and a small, trim white beard, a pair of twinkling blue eyes and the straightest back Joy had ever seen outside a military parade.

  ‘There’s a sight more up in the attics, too,’ he said now. ‘Old Mr. Barnes had a mania for auction sales. Never bought anything of great value once in his life, but always lived in the hope that one day he’d pick up what he called “a collector’s piece” somewhere amongst the rest of it. Most of the stuff is stored up there, but I dare say a lot of it could be put to some good use. There’s a little place in the town where there are two young men who love ... converting things, I think they call it. They’ll be full of ideas.’

  ‘We can talk about that when Mother has looked round,’ Joy said as Mrs. Wrenshaw proudly presented them with a lavish tea, ready laid in the dining-room. ‘At the moment I’m only anxious to change the paper on the walls and the paintwork. It will be a little depressing for Lana if she has to lie indoors very much if we leave it the way it is.’

  ‘That’s your invalid sister, Miss Benyon?’ Mrs. Wrenshaw refused to sit down with them, saying that she and her husband would prefer to have theirs in their own room at the back of the house, but she stayed there just the same, evidently anxious to give what advice and help she could.