by Sue Peters
CHAPTER SEVEN
ROB quickly settled down into the routine of the practice. She was sure of her ground where her work was concerned, and although Hallam Rand kept her under critical observation—prejudiced observation, she called it—she gave him no cause to complain, and the busy days passed quickly. Each morning the surgery was opened promptly at nine o'clock, and it frequently ran late into lunchtime with the waiting room still full. She quickly appreciated why the vet needed a partner, and did her utmost to pull her weight.
While he was working, Rob discovered that her employer was surprisingly easy to get on with. His standards were high, and he spared himself no trouble. It was obvious that he was completely dedicated to his job, and she responded with the best that her training had given her. She found herself slipping easily into his routine, which was very like her own, thorough and conscientious, and although he seemed to accept her help reluctantly at first, as the days went by he began to turn to her more and more.
Without either of them saying anything, it became a habit for them to work together on the more difficult cases, and separately on the routine ones. Rob realised with a feeling akin to awe what a vast quantity of work they had managed, together, to put behind them each day, and she felt a keen sense of pride in her own achievement and part in this. Increasingly Hallam
Rand left the surgery to deal with outside work, and Rob coped on her own.
"I've had to neglect a good deal of that side of the practice," he told her frankly, "and it's been on my conscience. Now I know you can cope with most things here on your own, it will leave me free to catch up with the outside work."
Coming from the man who, on his own admission, was reluctant to employ her, it was indeed an accolade, and she felt quite elated. Perhaps, after all, at the end of the month. . . . But she put the thought from her, disinclined to live in a fool's paradise, and suffer the consequent disappointment when her month's probation was served, and she had to find herself another job. "Probably in some ghastly suburb," she thought dejectedly.
She enjoyed the freedom of working on her own, making her own decisions, and getting to know her patients through their regular visits, and via them, their owners. Rob soon found that she was making a number of friends in the district, and when she did her rounds after surgery was over she was hailed and passed the time of day with by an increasing cross section of the little community. She enjoyed the feeling of belonging, and had to remind herself sternly that she must not come to like it too much, since she would have to leave it all behind her, and start again in a very short time.
The new routine met with Martha's approval as well. She voiced her feelings to Rob when she brought
her coffee into the surgery during a welcome breather one morning.
"Mr Rand has gone out," Rob told her, "but he said he would be back in time for lunch."
"These days, when he says that, I know he means it," the housekeeper commented, somewhat grimly. "Before you came, what meals he spared the time for he usually, ate standing up, and when he got in for his dinner at night he was mostly too tired to eat it."
"It does seem a busy practice. Too much for one person on their own."
"A great deal too much, as I've been telling Mr Hal for the past year or two," answered Martha roundly.
"Couldn't he have got an assistant before, if he was so busy ?" asked Rob, curious to know why he had delayed so long.
"Oh, he advertised," replied Martha, "and one or two came for the post. One even stayed, for a week or two, but he didn't like living so far out in the country. They all seemed to want town life," she snorted disapprovingly, "and so in the end Mr Hal more or less gave up. It's a good many miles to the nearest picture house from here," she acknowledged, "and there was nothing Mr Hal could do about that, so he carried on trying to cope on his own. It was Miss Verity who finally scolded him into trying again," she added with satisfaction, "he just never left a moment to spare for himself."
Rob could well understand Verity Wade's protest. When she married the vet she would not want to have a husband who was continually at work, with never a
second to spare for his wife and his home. No wonder she had pushed him into doing something about it while there was still time. And it would have worked, she admitted, if she had only been a man. She herself thoroughly enjoyed living at Martyr's Green, she loved the village itself, and had become enamoured of the countryside around. Now, too, that she had come to know the people, all of them seemingly willing to accept her into their little community, 'except the vet himself, she thought ruefully, she would have been quite happy to settle down and do her part to build up the practice with her employer.
A sudden thought struck her. Could it be that Hallam Rand had another reason for not wanting a girl assistant? Might Verity be jealous of the thought of a close working liaison between the man she intended to marry, and another woman ? She did not let the thought disturb her. Her own time at Martyr's Green would not be sufficiently long for any complications to arise in that direction, she thought, and in the meantime the vet's own outspoken reluctance to engage her, and her unfortunate habit of falling foul of him in almost everything except her work should be quite enough to convince Verity that she stood in no danger from her direction.
Verity popped in one morning with some eggs for Martha, and stopped for the inevitable cup of coffee that seemed to be a long-standing habit with her as soon as she appeared at Mill House.
"Are you coming to the dance ?" she enquired of
Rob. "What will you wear?" Her interest was both feminine and friendly.
"Dance? What dance?" It was news to Rob that there was one.
"Oh, hasn't Hal told you?" the other girl exclaimed. "It's the village garden fete at the weekend, and there's always a hop in the church hall afterwards. You must come," she urged, and her invitation sounded quite genuine. "Of course you will. Hal will bring you." She waved aside Rob's doubtful murmur. "There'll be a crowd of us together, you'll be sure to enjoy it."
Rob was sure she would. She loved dancing. But she was not so sure that she liked the thought of going with Hallam Rand. To start with, there was Verity. The vet might not be so keen to escort his assistant as well as the girl he was to marry, and Rob had no desire to make an unwanted third. She felt that, already, in Mill House without making matters worse.
"Does Mr Rand go to the fete as well ?" she hedged, her imagination boggling somewhat at the thought of her rather austere employer enjoying the bucolic delights of a village garden fete.
"Of course," replied Verity, looking surprised. "He has the job of judging the dog show, so he's got to be there. You must bring along your pennies and have a go at the hoop-la," she smiled, downing the rest of her coffee and sliding off her seat on the edge of the table. "Tell her, Hal," she commanded the vet, who appeared unexpectedly through the door of the
surgery, and started to rummage in the cupboard where they kept the stock of drugs.
"I came back for some more injections. Have you used them all, Rob ? Oh no, here they are." He dived his hand into another shelf and fished out a carton. "I'll take half of them. Order another lot from the supplier, will you ?"
Rob nodded, and made a note on her pad. The vet pocketed the handful he had retained, and turned towards the door. Verity sidestepped in front of it, and blocked his way.
"The fete," she insisted, "and the dance afterwards." The vet's eyes crinkled into a smile.
"What about them ?" he countered teasingly. "They're several days away yet. Why worry about them now ?"
"I told Rob you would bring her," the girl told him frankly. "She hasn't been to a do in the village yet. I don't think there's been one since you've been here," she said to Rob. "It would be a pity to miss this one."
"In other words, come while you still have the chance," thought Rob bitterly. Verity obviously knew that she would not be at Martyr's Green long enough to come to the next one. Just the same, she had no wish for Hallam Rand to feel obliged
to escort her to the fete, or to the dance in the evening. Doubtless he would want to take Verity himself, and would hardly welcome being pushed into escorting his assistant.
"I don't think . . ." she began hesitantly, and Hallam Rand butted in.
"Don't you like dancing, Rob ?"
"Oh yes," said Rob, "but. . ."
The vet eyed her slender figure, formal in its surgery overall, and smiled briefly.
"Then we must make sure there are no calls to occupy us on Saturday," he told her. "Verity is never sure of me turning up," he explained. "If she's shanghaied you into going against your wishes, as a surety for me, you must say so."
"Then that's decided," said Verity firmly.
She gave Rob no time to answer. "No time to refuse," Rob thought, though she would have liked to. She did feel that she had been pushed into going, and had put the vet in a position where he would have had no option but to turn up. She felt thoroughly uncomfortable, and vexed with Verity for her rather obvious ploy, but she could not very well back out now. She watched them go out together, and turned to tidy up the drugs cupboard with a feeling of depression.
"I need a break," she decided, so as soon as her calls were done—she only had two that afternoon she searched out her camera and made her way to' the village green to try and get some shots while the light lasted. The afternoon was clear and bright, and she took several snaps of the church, and the cluster of cottages, from different angles, and one of the Martyr's Arms from beside the duckpond.
Shifting her position slightly to take in the sleeping group of ducks, she became aware of a figure crossing the field of the viewfinder. She waited for a second or two, engrossed in her task, expecting the person to
carry on walking. Instead he turned deliberately and came towards her, until soon she had a close-up in her viewfinder of a dark, swarthy face, surmounted by an untidy mop of black, curling hair, greasily clinging to the open collar of a non-too-clean shirt.
"Take me. I might add a bit of local colour." Rob stiffened, and a flush of annoyance stained her cheeks.
"I've taken all I need, thank you." Deliberately she snapped her camera shut, then hesitated as she saw Jimmy running across the green towards her, with Sam panting in his rear. She would have liked a snap of the little boy and his dog, he was a likeable youngster.
"Hello, Jimmy !"
"Hello, Miss Frenton." He gasped to a halt. "Mum sent me across to ask if you could spare the time to come in for a cup of tea." His glance went across to the dark-haired man who still stood confronting Rob. "Miss Fenton is working for Mr Rand," he said. "She's a vet." He threw the information at the man as if he had a purpose, and his young voice made it sound curiously like a threat.
"So you work for Hallam Rand?" The coarse features darkened. "Well, you can tell your boss from me. .. ."
"Come on, Miss Fenton, let's go. We've got cream cakes !"
Jimmy tugged at her hand urgently, and Rob turned, unsure of what it was that she had to tell Hallam Rand, but quite sure that she did not want
to either hear the message, or deliver it. Her relationship with her employer was balanced on a knife edge as it was, without interfering in what looked like a misunderstanding between these two. The vet seemed good at misunderstandings, but for once Rob felt her sympathy on his side. She did not like the look of the slovenly creature in front of her, and seeing that she had no intention of listening to him he hesitated, shrugged, and shambled away towards an incredibly dirty and battered old jeep on the other side of the village green. Rob noticed to her horror that his walk was not quite steady.
She laughed, half with relief, and allowed the boy to tug her across the green towards the Martyr's Arms, the woolly Sam leading the way, evidently as keen as his small master at the thought of the treat in store.
"How do you tell which end is which?" she chuckled, regarding the dog later from her seat beside the landlord, in the low-ceilinged living room.
Tom Grant laughed.
"One end eats, and the other wags," he smiled. "Someone dumped him when he was a puppy. Some holidaymaker, I imagine." His tone betrayed his opinion of people who callously dumped animals.
"And we took him in," supplied his wife, plying Rob with another cake.
"I'm going to enter him for the dog show," Jimmy announced proudly. "That ducking he had gave him a bath, and if I brush him up a bit.... Do you think
he'll get first prize, Miss Fenton?" he asked hopefully, and Rob forced back a smile.
"He's in a class of his own, Jimmy," she assured the proud owner, and hoped that something could be done on the day of the fete so as not to disappoint the bright little face in front of her. She would try and mention it to Hallam Rand, though she supposed that would be cheating in a way. Anyhow, she decided, she would broach the subject with her employer when the opportunity arose. There was a day or two to go yet, the fete was not until Saturday.
The opportunity did not arise that evening, and during the next hectic morning Rob forgot all about it. The surgery was full, and she had the added task of answering the telephone as well, because Martha had gone into Barhill to do some shopping.
"I'll be back about four," she told Rob. "If you have to go out, just leave a note on the hall table where you are in case any calls come while you're away."
"Right-ho !" Rob responded cheerfully, donning a clean white coat in readiness for the morning's work.
"You can get me if you want me at the County Council offices," Hal informed her in his turn. "The number is on the pad."
"At least he's beginning to trust me with the knowledge of his whereabouts," thought Rob, and remembered belatedly that as Martha would be out of the house anyway, he had no option but to leave the information with her.
"If it's about bulls in footpath fields, then I wish you luck," she said feelingly.
He glanced at her quickly, a look of pleased surprise on his face.
"So you remembered ? We could do with more people of your frame of mind in the Council offices," be said, with emphasis. "If you're ready now, Martha," he called through the kitchen door, "I can run you into Barhill and save you waiting for the bus."
The door slammed behind them, and Rob immediately became absorbed in surgery tasks. She had three telephone calls during the morning, none of which required a visit; one wrong number, and then Hetty Wilberforce rang-to explain at length that the powder Rob had brought had 'worked like a charm'. "There's no trace of fleas at all now, Miss Fenton. I'm so grateful," she fluted. "With the dog show on Saturday and
all."
Rob, in the middle of stitching a cat's shoulder, had to explain that she was occupied in the surgery, whereupon her caller spent another precious five minutes apologising profusely for disturbing her, before she rang off.
It was long gone one o'clock before Rob closed the door on the last of her patients with a sigh of relief, and reached for the thermos of coffee that Martha had thoughtfully left for her. It was hot and strong, and she wrinkled her nose at the sharp, sweet tang of it. The telephone rang again as she lifted the cup to her lips.
"Mr Rand's surgery."
"Norton End farm here." The voice on the other end of the line was brusque, rough. Rob thought she
had heard it somewhere before, but she could not quite place it. "I've got a cow in some trouble. I want someone out here right away."
"I'm on my way," promised Rob. "But first tell me what's wrong."
But the line had gone dead. She put the receiver down, and reached for the telephone book, then realised that she did not know the name of the farmer. Her eyes sought the large-scale district map hung on the wall of the surgery. Norton End was on the other side of the village, backing on to the Martyr's Arms. She would be there almost as quickly as she could phone.
She reached resignedly for her bag, visualising a hundred (Efferent things that could spell trouble to a cow, and hoped that her admittedly comprehensive emergency kit would cope with whichever one it happened to be. If onl
y Martha had been in the house she could have discovered who the farmer was, and phoned him back, but by the time she had searched the information out she would be on the spot anyway. She shrugged her shoulders and quitted the surgery, locking the door carefully behind her. She would just leave a note for Martha on the telephone pad, to tell her where she had gone. She bent and scribbled 'Norton End farm, cow in unspecified trouble' on the top sheet, and searched out Hoppy from the garage. Soon she was bowling into the village, past the church They turned left into the lane that ran at the back of the Martyr's Arms, and followed it along the course of the River Bar.
She caught sight of Jimmy and his dog beside the water. She tooted her horn, and the boy looked up, his fishing net raised in instant greeting as he recognised the Austin, and Rob assumed that he was on his way to the ford to fish. His mother had said that it was shallow there. The dog Sam scuffled backwards and forwards round the boy's feet, and Rob smiled to herself. Another ducking via the ford might even get him into show condition for the garden fete, she thought, and remembered that she had not said anything about it to the vet yet. If he was not too absorbed with the results of his meeting at the Council offices, she would try and make the opportunity tonight, depending on what mood he was in when he came back. Although the atmosphere was more amicable between them now, she was still unsure of her position, and reluctant to upset him again.
She waved back to Jimmy, and carried on alertly along the lane, looking for the farm entrance. She could see the buildings in the distance; there must be a track leading off the lane soon. Eventually she ran right past it, and only realised that her brief glimpse of a sagging gatepost, minus a gate, had included what looked like a notice. It was.
The roughly painted letters were faded to the point of only being half visible, and the single nail that held it had worked loose, so that the notice itself teetered on the end in imminent danger of disappearing into the tangle of thicket that sprang up all round the rotting post. The gate itself lay flat on the ground, half obscured in a riot of nettles and bramble, obviously its