by Betty Neels
‘In here,’ said Dr Fforde, and she went through a half-open door to the room beyond where he sat at his desk. He got up as she went in.
He noticed with satisfaction that she looked very composed, as neat as a new pin, and the black eye was better, allowing for a glint of vivid green under the lid.
‘I’ll take you round and show you where everything is, and we will have coffee while I explain your work. There should be time after that for you to go around on your own, just to check things. As I told you, there are few skills required—only a smiling face for all the patients and the ability to cope with simple routine.’
He showed her the treatment room leading from his consulting room. ‘Nurse Paget comes about ten o’clock, unless I’ve a patient before then. She isn’t here every day, so she will explain her hours to you when you meet her. Now, this is the waiting room, which is our domain.’
Her duties were simple. Even at such short notice she thought that she would manage well enough, and there would be no one there in the afternoon so she would have time to go over her duties again. There would be three patients after five o’clock, he told her.
‘Now, your hours of work. You have an early-morning start—eight o’clock—an hour for lunch, between twelve and one, and tea when you have half an hour to spare during the afternoon. You’ll be free to leave at five o’clock, but I must warn you that frequently I have an evening patient and you would need to be here. You have half-day on Saturday and all Sunday free, but Miss Priss came in on Saturday mornings to get everything ready for Monday. Can you cope with that?’
‘Yes,’ said Loveday. ‘You will tell me if I don’t do everything as you like it?’
‘Yes. Now, salary…’ He mentioned a sum which made her blink the good eye.
‘Too much,’ said Loveday roundly. ‘I’m living rent-free, remember.’
She encountered an icy blue stare. ‘Allow me to make my own decisions, Miss West.’
She nodded meekly and said, ‘Yes, Doctor,’ but there was nothing meek about the sparkle in her eye. She would have liked to ask him to stop calling her Miss West with every breath, but since she was in his employ she supposed that she would have to answer to anything she felt he wished to call her.
That night, lying in her bed with the cat wrapped in one of her woolies curled up at her feet, Loveday, half asleep, went over the day. The two morning patients had been no problem; she had greeted them by name and ushered them in and out again, dealt with their appointments and filed away their notes and when the doctor, with a brief nod, had gone away, she had locked the door and come upstairs to her new home.
Todd had left everything necessary for the cat’s comfort outside the door. She had opened the window onto the flat roof, arranged everything to her satisfaction and watched the cat creep cautiously through the half-open window and then back again. She’d fed him then, and made herself a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee from the stock of food neatly stacked away in the kitchen.
The afternoon she had spent prowling round the consulting rooms, checking and re-checking; for such a magnificent wage she intended to be perfect…
The doctor had returned shortly before the first of his late patients, refused the tea she had offered to make him, and when the last one had gone he’d gone too, observing quietly that she appeared to have settled in nicely and bidding her goodnight. She had felt hurt that he hadn’t said more than that, but had consoled herself with the thought that he led a busy life and although he had given her a job and a roof over her head that was no reason why he should concern himself further.
She had spent a blissful evening doing sums and making a list of all the things she would like to buy. It was a lengthy list…
Dr Fforde had taken himself off home. There was no doubt about it, Loveday had taken to her new job like a duck to water. His patients, accustomed to Miss Priss’s austere politeness, had been made aware of the reason for her absence, and had expressed polite concern and commented on the suitability of her substitute. She might not have Miss Priss’s presence but she had a pleasant manner and a quiet voice which didn’t encroach…
He’d had an urgent call from the hospital within ten minutes of his return to his home. His work had taken over then, and for the time being, at least, he had forgotten her.
Loveday slept soundly with the cat curled up on her feet, and woke with the pleasant feeling that she was going to enjoy her day. She left the cat to potter onto the roof, which it did, while she showered and dressed and got breakfast. She wondered who had had the thoughtfulness to get several tins of cat food as she watched the little beast scoff its meal.
‘You’re beginning to look like a cat,’ she told him, ‘and worthy of a name.’ When he paused to look at her, she added, ‘I shall call you Sam, and I must say that it is nice to have someone to talk to.’
She made him comfortable on the woolly, left the window open and went down to the consulting room.
It was still early, and there was no one about except the porter, who wished her a cheerful good morning. ‘Put your rubbish out on a Friday,’ he warned her. ‘And will you be wanting milk?’
‘Yes, please. Does the milkman call?’
‘He does. I’ll get him to leave an extra pint and I’ll put it outside your door.’
She thanked him and unlocked the waiting room door. For such a magnificent sum the doctor deserved the very best attention; she dusted and polished, saw to the flowers in their vases, arranged the post just so on his desk, got out the patients’ notes for the day and put everything ready to make coffee. That done, she went and sat by the open window and watched the quiet street below. When the Bentley whispered to a halt below she went and sat down behind her desk in the corner of the room.
The doctor, coming in presently, glanced at her as he wished her a brisk good morning and sighed with silent relief. She hadn’t been putting on a show yesterday; she really was composed and capable, sitting there sedately, ready to melt into the background until she was wanted.
He paused at his door. ‘Any problems? You are quite comfortable upstairs?’
‘Yes, thank you, and there are no problems. Would you like coffee? It’ll only take a minute.’
‘Please. Would you bring it in?’
Since she made no effort to attract attention to herself he forgot her, absorbed in his patients, but remembered as he left to visit those who were housebound or too ill to come and see him, to wish her good morning and advise her that he would be back during the afternoon.
Loveday, eating her lunchtime sandwich, leaning out of the window watching Sam stretched out in the autumn sunshine, told the cat about the morning’s work, the patients who had come, and the few bad moments she had had when she had mislaid some notes.
‘I found them, luckily,’ she explained to him. ‘I can’t afford to slip up, can I, Sam? I don’t wish Miss Priss to be too worried about her mother, but I do hope she won’t come back until I’ve saved some money and found a job where you’ll be welcome.’
Sam paused in his wash and brush-up and gave her a look. He was going to be a handsome cat, but he wasn’t young any more, so a settled life would suit him down to the ground. He conveyed his feelings with a look, and Loveday said, ‘Yes, I know, Sam. But I’ll not part with you, I promise.’
At the end of the week she found an envelope with her wages on her desk, and when she thanked the doctor he said, ‘I’ll be away for the weekend. You’ll be here in the morning? Take any phone calls, and for anything urgent you can reach me at the number on my desk. Set the answering-machine when you leave. I have a patient at half past nine on Monday morning.’ At the door he paused. ‘I hope you have a pleasant weekend.’
At noon on Saturday she locked the consulting rooms and went to her little flat. With Sam on her lap she made a shopping list, ate her lunch and, bidding him to be a good boy, set off to the nearest shops. The porter had told her that five minutes’ walk away there were shops which should supply her needs
. ‘Nothing posh,’ he said. ‘Been there for years, they have, very handy, too.’
She soon found them, tucked away behind the rather grand houses: the butcher, the baker, the greengrocer, all inhabiting small and rather shabby shops, but selling everything she had on her list. There was a newsagent too, selling soft drinks, chocolates and sweets, and with a shelf of second-hand books going cheap.
Loveday went back to her flat and unpacked her carrier bags. She still wasn’t sure when she could get out during the day, and had prudently stocked up with enough food to last for several days. That done, she sat down to her tea and made another list—clothes, this time. They were a pipe dream at the moment, but there was no harm in considering what she would buy once she had saved up enough money to spend some of it.
It was very quiet in the house. Todd had locked up and gone home, and the place would be empty now until he came again around six o’clock on Monday morning. Loveday wasn’t nervous; indeed she welcomed the silence after Miss Cattell’s voice raised unendingly in demands and complaints. She washed her hair and went to bed early, with Sam for company.
She went walking on Sunday, to St James’s Park and then Hyde Park, stopping for coffee on the way. It was a chilly day but she was happy. To be free, with money in her purse and a home to go back to—what more could she ask of life? she reflected. Well, quite a bit, she conceded—a husband, children and a home… and to be loved.
‘A waste of time,’ said Loveday, with no one to hear her. ‘Who would want to marry me in the first place and how would I ever meet him?’
She walked on briskly. He would have to love her even though she wasn’t pretty, and preferably have enough money to have a nice home and like children. Never mind what he looked like… She paused. Yes, she did mind—he would need to be tall and reassuringly large, and she wouldn’t object to him wearing specs on his handsome nose…
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ said Loveday. ‘Just because he’s the only man who has spoken to you for years.’
She took herself off back home and had a leisurely lunch—a lamb chop, sprouts and a jacket potato, with a tub of yoghurt for pudding—and then sat in the little armchair with Sam on her lap and read the Sunday paper from front to back. And then tea, and later supper and bed.
‘Some would call it a dull day, but we’ve enjoyed every minute of it,’ she told Sam.
The week began well. The nurse, whom she seldom saw, had treated her with coolness at first, and then, realising that Loveday presented no risk to her status, became casually friendly. As for Dr Fforde, he treated her with the brisk, friendly manner which she found daunting. But such treatment was only to be expected….
It was almost the end of the week when he came earlier than usual to the consulting rooms. She gave him coffee and, since she was for the moment idle, paused to tell him that Sam had turned into a handsome cat. ‘And he’s very intelligent,’ she added chattily. ‘You really should come up and see him some time…’
The moment she had uttered them she wished the words unsaid. The doctor’s cool, ‘I’m glad to hear that he has made such a good recovery,’ uttered in a dismissive voice sent the colour into her cheeks. Of course the very idea of his climbing the stairs to her little flat to look at the cat was ridiculous. As though he had the slightest interest…
She buried her hot face in the filing cabinet. Never, never, she vowed, would she make that mistake again.
Dr Fforde, watching her, wondered how best to explain to her that visiting her at the flat would cause gossip—friendly, no doubt, but to be avoided. He decided to say nothing, but asked her in his usual grave way to telephone the hospital and say that he might be half an hour late.
‘Mrs Seward has an appointment after the last patient. She is not a patient, so please show her in at once.’
The last patient had barely been shown out when Mrs Seward arrived. She was tall, slender, with a lovely face, skilfully made up, and wearing the kind of clothes Loveday dreamed of. She had a lovely smile, too.
‘Hello—you’re new, aren’t you? What’s happened to Miss Priss? Has Andrew finished? I’m a bit early.’
‘Mrs Seward? Dr Fforde’s expecting you.’
Loveday opened his door and stood aside for Mrs Seward to go in. Before she closed it she heard him say, ‘Margaret—this is delightful.’
‘Andrew, it’s been so long…’ was Mrs Seward’s happy reply.
Loveday went back to her desk and got out the afternoon patients’ notes. That done, she entered their names and phone numbers into the daily diary. It was time for her to go to her lunch, but she supposed that she should stay; they would go presently and she could lock up. He would be at the hospital during the afternoon, and there were no more patients until almost four o’clock.
She didn’t have long to wait. They came out together presently, and the doctor stopped at the desk and asked her to lock up. ‘And since the first patient is at four o’clock there’s no need for you to come back until three.’
His voice was as kind as his smile. Mrs Seward smiled too. On their way down to the car she said, ‘I like your receptionist. A mouse with green eyes.’
The extra hour or so for lunch wasn’t to be ignored. Loveday gobbled a sandwich, fed Sam, and went shopping, returning with her own simple needs and weighed down by tins of cat food and more books. She had seen that the funny little shop squeezed in between the grocer and the butcher sold just about everything and had noticed some small, cheap radios. On pay day, she promised herself, she would buy one. And the greengrocer had had a bucketful of chrysanthemums outside his shop; they perhaps weren’t quite as fresh as they might have been, but they would add a cheerful splash of colour in the flat.
The doctor arrived back five minutes before his patient, accepted the cup of tea she offered him and, when the last patient of the afternoon had gone, bade her goodnight without loss of time.
‘They’ll go out this evening,’ said Loveday aloud. ‘To one of those restaurants with little lamps on the tables. And then they’ll go dancing. She’s quite beautiful. They make a handsome pair.’
She locked up with her usual care and went upstairs to give Sam his supper and herself a pot of tea. She would have a pleasant evening, she told herself: an omelette for her supper and then a peaceful hour with one of the second-hand books.
‘I’m becoming an old maid,’ said Loveday.
There was news of Miss Priss in the morning; her mother was recovering from her stroke but must stay in hospital for another ten days. After that she would return home and be nursed by Miss Priss and a helper. There was every chance that she would recover, and then Miss Priss would be able to return to work once arrangements for her mother’s comfort could be made.
The doctor told Loveday this without going into details, and although she was sorry for Miss Priss and her mother, she couldn’t help feeling relief. She had known that sooner or later Miss Priss would be back, but the longer she could stay the more money she could save, and with some experience and a reference from the doctor she would have a better chance of finding work. She must remember, she told herself, to curb her tongue and not talk about herself or Sam.
As a result of this resolution the doctor was at first faintly amused and then puzzled at her wooden politeness towards him. She had become in the short time she had been working for him almost as efficient as Miss Priss; she was discreet, pleasantly attentive to his patients, willing to come early and work late if need be, and disappeared to her little flat so quietly that he barely noticed her going. And always there when he arrived in the mornings. It was what he expected and what he paid her for, but all the same he now had a vague sense of disquiet, so that he found himself thinking about her very frequently.
A few days later she went down rather earlier; there were more patients than usual today. The doctor would expect everything to be ready for them.
There was a man on the landing outside the consulting rooms, standing easily, hands in pockets, looking ou
t of the landing window. He turned round to look at her as she reached the door.
He smiled at her and said good morning. ‘I hoped someone would come soon. I’d love a cup of coffee.’ At her surprised look, he added, ‘Oh, it’s quite all right, Andrew won’t mind.’
When she still stood there, looking at him, he added impatiently, ‘Open up, dear girl.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Loveday. ‘I don’t know who you are, and even if you told me I’m not to know whether it’s the truth. I’m so sorry, but if you want to see the doctor then you should come back at nine o’clock.’
She put the key in the lock. ‘I have no intention of letting you in.’
She whisked herself inside, locked the door again and left him there. He had been sure of himself, demanding coffee, behaving as if he knew the doctor, but he could so easily be intent on skullduggery…
She set about her morning chores and had everything just as the doctor liked and the coffee ready when he came in.
The young man was with him and they were both laughing.
The doctor’s good morning was said in his usual quiet manner, but his companion told Loveday, ‘You see, I am a bona fide caller. Are you not remorseful at your treatment of me? And I only asked to be let in and given coffee.’
‘You could have been a thief,’ said Loveday.
‘Quite right, Loveday,’ interposed the doctor. ‘You did the right thing and, since my cousin hasn’t the good grace to introduce himself, I must do it for him. Charles Fforde, this is Miss Loveday West, who is my most efficient receptionist.’
Charles offered a hand, and after a tiny pause she shook it.
‘What happened to Miss Prissy?’
‘I’ll tell you about her. Come into my room. There is time for coffee, but you must go away before my patients arrive.’ The doctor opened his door. ‘I should be free about one o’clock; we’ll have lunch together.’
Loveday fetched the coffee. Charles was much younger than the doctor—more her own age, she supposed. He was good-looking too, and well dressed. She thought uneasily that he was very like Miss Cattell’s men-friends, only younger. On the other hand he was the doctor’s cousin, and he, in her view, was beyond reproach.