Promise the Doctor

by Marjorie Norrell

  ‘Yes,’ Joy said gravely. ‘She can’t ... doesn’t walk, yet. We hope she will, given time. It was an accident ... when she was much younger, just at the start of a promising career.’

  ‘Miss Barnes wrote us all about it,’ Mrs. Wrenshaw told her. ‘And when I knew what she’d done about the house, Miss Barnes, I mean, I said to Eric here’—she indicated her silent husband—‘we can do the old gentleman’s study over for the young lady. She can use it as her bedroom. It opens into the conservatory which opens into the garden. She could have the best of things indoors and out, that way.’

  ‘What a lovely idea,’ Joy enthused, and when they were taken to see the study and discovered that there was a small alcove in it which would just take a single bed, she was more enthusiastic than ever. ‘We could take it in turns to sleep down here if Lana wanted us to,’ she pointed out. ‘It should be all very easy to arrange.’

  Everything, it seemed, was ‘all very easy to arrange ‘, and by the time they had completed a full tour of the house, with the exception of the attics, gone round the garden which held full promise of the sunny days to come, and admired the bedding plants Eric Wrenshaw had already grown in the greenhouse ready to transplant, there was not much time left to them. Alice Wrenshaw said she ‘wouldn’t rest ‘until Miss Benyon had taken a look at the extensive stocks of linen, china and glassware, cutlery and all manner of such things with which the house appeared to be well packed.

  ‘You’ll be able to set your mother’s mind at rest, Miss Benyon dear ... or should I say Sister?’ she asked. ‘Tell her we have plenty of everything we need. There’s no need for her to buy anything extra at all, and there’s plenty of room for whatever you bring along from your own home as well.’

  By the time they said goodbye to the Wrenshaws, knowing they had made two good and faithful friends, the April dusk was falling, and Pete, after an anxious glance at his watch, announced they must not waste any time on the way if they did not wish to alarm Mrs. Benyon!

  It was a little tricky, finding their way back along the winding road out of this quiet part of the town, but once on the wide main road they recognized, they settled down to enjoy their return journey. Ahead of them, under the modern street lighting, they saw a heavy lorry with a loaded trailer behind it. Just at the side of the lorry a boy riding an errand-boy’s bicycle pedalled hard to keep abreast of the lorry, but as they drew out of the thirty-mile limit and into the forty-mile zone of the town, the lorry put on speed and went ahead.

  What happened next was, from Joy’s point of view, horrible, but something which also made her instantly thankful for a careful and thorough training which had taught her to be of some use in the world. Afterwards they heard the boy had seized on the idea of taking hold of the back of the lorry to give him a tow along the road, something he knew to be both unwise and dangerous, but they were facts he chose to ignore when he was tired. It was quickly evident that he had not seen the trailer behind the lorry, and almost before the automatic protest against what they expected to happen had reached Joy’s lips, the trailer had caught the lad a heavy blow and sent him reeling from his machine and almost into the electric light standard at the side of the road.

  Like Joy, Pete had guessed what would happen, and it was his quick thinking and almost instant action which saved the boy from being run over in addition to his existent injuries, by Pete’s oncoming vehicle.

  Joy was out of the car almost before it stopped and kneeling beside the boy as he lay at the edge of the road. Pete had signalled the lorry-driver with his lights, and the lorry was pulled up too, just a little way ahead.

  Where the people came from she never realized, but suddenly the road which had appeared almost deserted was crammed by curious sightseeing people of all ages and types.

  ‘I’ve sent my boy to telephone for the doctor,’ a man told Joy as she lifted the boy’s head into her lap. ‘Is there anything else I can do, miss? You look as though you know what you’re about.’

  ‘I’m a trained nurse,’ Joy told him briefly. ‘Yes, there is something you can do. Pop across to one of those houses on the other side of the road and try and borrow a broom or something of that nature. And some long strips of linen or sheeting or anything that will make a strip long enough to tie the broom to his leg. He’s fractured it.’ She gave the brief explanation as the man hesitated. ‘I want to put on a temporary splint, then he must be taken to hospital. Have you asked your boy to telephone for the ambulance as well?’

  ‘I didn’t think of that,’ the man confessed, still somewhat shaken by what he had seen. ‘I just thought of Doctor Moyser...’

  ‘Don’t!’ Joy spoke the one word sharply as a woman from the little crowd gathered round the boy moved forward to lift him.

  ‘He’s moaning,’ the woman complained. ‘And his ears are bleeding. I can see.’

  ‘He very probably has a fractured skull,’ Joy said crisply, ‘and to move him when it isn’t necessary is likely to do more harm than good. I hope’—she ended almost under her breath as she worked on the temporary splint under the watchful eyes of the crowd of onlookers—‘your Doctor Moyser won’t forget to telephone for the ambulance before he leaves wherever he is!’

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ the lorry-driver was protesting. ‘I passed him, normal like. Next thing I know is this young man here signalling me with his lights, and when I get back it’s to find this young shaver on his back in the gutter and his bike smashed to bits, and it looks likely I’ll get the blame for it. Folks always think it’s the driver ... but it seems to me he didn’t even see the trailer, never mind about waiting to see if it was clear behind me and that he could hang on. It tells them in the Highway Code not to do it.’

  ‘You weren’t to blame, old man,’ Pete assured him gravely. ‘We saw what happened.’

  ‘And now let’s take a look at the result.’ A firm, young man’s voice came from somewhere just above Joy’s head. She looked up to see a charming, thin face with curiously slanting eyes looking down into her own, and suddenly, as their glances met and locked, it seemed that an electric current had passed between them. Whether anyone else had observed anything different about the moment or not, Joy neither knew nor cared at that moment. She knew she was trembling suddenly, and quite without reason, and with an effort she pulled herself together to listen to the stranger’s words.

  ‘Let me introduce myself.’ He was giving an expert eye to the now finished job of the temporary splint. ‘My name is Quentin Moyser. My father and I are doctors in practice around these parts. If I may say so’—he smiled suddenly directly into Joy’s eyes and the smile seemed to be especially for her and her alone—‘you’ve made a splendid job of that. Miss...’

  ‘Benyon,’ Joy finished for him. ‘Sister Joy Benyon, of the General Infirmary, Wilborough ... at least until the end of the month.’

  Uneasily Pete moved forward, and there was just time for Joy to introduce the two men to each other before the ambulance halted beside them and the uniformed figures of the ambulance men jumped out and took charge of the boy. A policeman had appeared, it seemed from nowhere, and as he came on the scene the little crowd melted discreetly, returning back to wherever it had emerged from and melting into the night.

  The policeman took statements from Joy and Pete as well as from the lorry-driver, and muttering dark words about youths who wanted ‘everything easy, even if they know it to be wrong and dangerous’, he went on his way after saying a cheerful goodnight to the doctor, whom he appeared to know very well.

  ‘Well!’ Quentin Moyser dusted his hands on the seat of his grey trousers and smiled again. ‘You’re probably anxious to be on your way,’ he began hesitantly, ‘but after an experience like that I think you might feel a little better for some hot coffee or tea ... what do you say? I live just up the road. If you would allow me...’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ Pete began stiffly, ‘but it is late, and ... someone will be getting anxious about Miss Benyon here.’

&n
bsp; ‘Can you telephone whoever it is?’ Quentin asked promptly. ‘How far have you still to go?’

  ‘To Wilborough,’ Joy told him before Pete could utter the ‘not very far’ she could sense was trembling on his tongue.

  ‘That’s all of fifty miles!’ Quentin took her arm purposefully, obviously aware that Pete would automatically follow without waiting further invitation. ‘You need that drink, and you can telephone from our house. Mother will be delighted to help.’

  ‘There isn’t anyone at home we can telephone,’ Pete was beginning to protest again, but Joy smiled, meeting Quentin’s glance again and feeling once more that strange sense of ‘belonging’ she had felt even at the moment of first meeting him.

  ‘Mr. Anderson, at the end of Cranberry Terrace, lets us use his telephone if we want to,’ she put in. ‘He always says we can ring him too if there is any message we wish to have taken home. He’s a free-lance journalist on the local paper,’ she explained to Quentin. ‘A very pleasant man, and often he’s found typing jobs and so on for Mother. He’s very friendly, and he doesn’t go to bed very early, so I know we shouldn’t be disturbing him unduly. And I know Mother won’t rest until she’s certain we are safe.’

  ‘That settles it, then,’ Quentin decided. ‘Mr. Anderson it is, and he can deliver the message to your mother. Will you follow me?’ He turned to Pete, but there was not even a shadow of doubt in his voice as he spoke, and without turning his head he got into his own green Jaguar and flashed his lights, waiting for Pete to fall in behind with his own smaller vehicle.

  Pete’s jaw was set grimly as he obediently swung into line behind the doctor’s car, but he made no comment, only answered in the briefest of monosyllables as Joy talked to him on the short journey up the road towards home. Their excursion ended as Quentin swung into a wide, gently curving driveway bordered by wallflowers in full bloom, their scent rising and entering the car as they passed.

  ‘Here we are.’ Quentin halted outside the wide, white porch and went ahead of them into the house. ‘Come in, please,’ he invited, then they could hear his voice in a further part of the house calling for his mother.

  ‘In the kitchen, dear,’ Celia Moyser called gently. ‘I’ve just put the kettle on, and there’s coffee perking.’

  Quentin advanced into the kitchen and closed the sound proofed door gently behind him, smiling at the bright-eyed, brown-haired woman who was his mother and, as he so often told her, his truest friend.

  ‘We’ll decide in a moment, Mother,’ he told her. ‘When we find out which our visitors prefer. She doesn’t know it yet, and I don’t know what obstacles there may be in me way—including a young man who’s with her right now—but there’s the girl in our lounge I intend to make my wife. You’re always urging me to “settle down” ... now come and see if you approve of my choice!’

  CHAPTER VI

  If Celia Moyser was surprised by her son’s declaration there was no trace of any such emotion on her pleasant, smiling face as, a moment or so later, she followed him into the lounge. Joy, who was accustomed to assessing people as and when she met them, liked her at once. She seemed so tiny beside her tall, broad-shouldered son, and the way in which she whisked about, brewing the tea they all declared they would prefer in place of the—coffee, bringing out a tray of biscuits and cakes, all obviously home-baked, reminded Joy, amusedly, of a bright, alert little robin.

  ‘I suppose your father will be able to tell us something about the unfortunate young man when he comes in.’ She was speaking in reply to Quentin’s story of the accident to which he had been called and at which he had found Joy helping and herself and Pete as witnesses. ‘He’s still at the hospital,’ she concluded.

  Joy leaned slightly forward, acutely conscious of Quentin sitting opposite to her and watching her intently.

  ‘Would that be St Lucy’s or the General?’ she asked.

  ‘St Lucy’s.’ Quentin’s attention was arrested now. Surely he wasn’t going to be so lucky as to have this unknown girl suddenly thrust into the midst of his working life?’ The General is just out of the town,’ he explained. ‘St Lucy’s isn’t far away. You must have passed the entrance road on your way up.’

  ‘Then it can’t be very far from Fernbank?’ Joy asked further. ‘The house the late Miss Barnes lived in?’

  ‘And all her family before her for a generation or two gone by. I believe it was built by her grandfather,’ Mrs. Moyser contributed. ‘No, St Lucy’s more or less overlooks Fernbank, in a manner of speaking. That is to say St Lucy’s is at the top of the hill above the road where Fernbank stands, on what is known locally as “the shore road”. What made you ask?’ she went on. ‘Have you been visiting Mrs. Wrenshaw?’

  The question, Joy knew, was not one of idle curiosity. She had learned a great deal during her talks with the late Miss Barnes, and one thing she had learned had been the wonderfully closely knit community which made up the select residential section of Vanmouth.

  ‘It all seemed to begin in the war years,’ Miss Barnes had reminisced. ‘Somehow, when the first evacuees came along, right through every alert, every raid, even in other parts of the country, we all tended to draw nearer together. It was as though we drew comfort and assurance from one another just by being together ... not in those awful shelters, you understand. But by sort of banding together as a community, and, thank heaven, although that sort of thing is now looked upon as being a little old-fashioned and isn’t in keeping with what I’ve seen of the modern world of today, a great deal of that spirit has been left with those families who grew up together at that time, and I, at any rate, am thankful for it. We’re all interested in what happens to the rest of us, whether it be good or bad. If it’s good then we like to rejoice along with the fortunate ones, and if it’s bad ... well, it’s surprising what can be done to help even in the most hopelessly stricken cases, if only there’s more than one person to cope.’

  Now, remembering her old friend’s words, Joy knew the question for what it was, merely a friendly interest, and she felt a sudden warm glow of pleasure as she replied. It had made her feel she was already accepted as one of the community.

  ‘We have been visiting,’ she said now, ‘but only because Miss Barnes surprised me by leaving Fernbank and its contents to my care. I never expected any such thing...’

  ‘Then you must be the Sister she wrote to Mrs. Wrenshaw about,’ Celia said, nodding as though satisfied by something. ‘I never heard your name, my dear, but I know you made dear Muriel as happy as she possibly could be, so far away from everyone she knew and who knew her.’

  ‘I ... thought she was entirely alone in the world,’ Joy confessed. ‘No one seemed to come and see her. There was one young man, I remember, one visiting afternoon, but that was all.’

  ‘That would be young Mr. Napier, Mr. Belding’s articled clerk, or rather one of them.’ Celia nodded as though this explained everything. ‘That was when Muriel had the will drafted out for her signature. We should have all gone to see her, but she had expressly said she didn’t want anyone she loved to see her in what she called “the state of health to which I am now reduced”, and so, of course, none of us went to see her, not even Mrs. Wrenshaw, though she would have willingly walked there if she had not realized how upset Miss Muriel would be!’

  ‘That would be why you said “at least until the end of the month” when you told me who you were,’ Quentin put in. ‘I take it you intend to move into Fernbank, then?’

  ‘All being well.’ Joy’s smile, Quentin decided, seemed to do strange things to the emotions which so far he had never suspected existed where he was concerned. ‘There’s an awful lot to do and to plan first, though.’

  ‘If there is anything I or my family can do to help at this end of affairs, you have only to say so,’ Celia offered. ‘I know just how difficult it can be to cope with hospital routine and attend to one’s private affairs if they don’t happen to be on the doorstep. Are you,’ she asked so casually that again Joy kn
ew there was no curiosity as such in the question, merely a friendly interest, ‘a large family?’

  ‘Not really. There’s Mother. She’s the prop and mainstay of the household. We ... lost my fattier in an accident fifteen years ago. The same accident which robbed Pete’—she smiled in his direction, knowing he was feeling excluded from the conversation to some extent and knowing also how hurt and upset he was likely to be as a result—‘of both his parents. He has lived with us ever since then,’ she concluded, ‘but until he can find suitable employment in or around Vanmouth we shall have to leave him to follow when he can.’

  ‘What kind of opening are you looking for, Mr. Bradley?’ Celia was determined to be both friendly and helpful, although Pete’s expression showed his definite desire to be on his way. She nodded as he told her of his recently acquired qualifications, frowning slightly, then nodding again as though satisfied. ‘If you are prepared to go into industrial accounting,’ she observed, ‘there ought to be an opening for you somewhere. I should advise your taking the Vanmouth Advertiser. Almost everybody advertises in there if they require the services of anyone in a professional capacity.’

  ‘And you were looking for another position, Sister Benyon?’ Quentin asked directly, his smile deepening as Joy nodded. ‘I don’t think you’ll have much trouble here,’ he said. ‘We always seem to be short of nurses and Sisters in the winter time. Height of summer, everyone is thrilled to be here, but it’s a very different story when the winter gales are raging, especially at St Lucy’s. Being so close to the coastline and so high up they get the full benefit of every storm. The General is a little more sheltered, but somewhat off the beaten track when it comes to what little gaiety there is in Vanmouth in the winter months, but a great deal depends on how close you wish to be to home. I’ve no doubt you’ll be welcomed with open arms at either hospital, and now that I’ve seen you in action’—he grinned suddenly, making his somewhat serious-looking face suddenly boyish—‘I can add my own personal recommendation to whatever others you may have.’