New Doctor at Northmoor

by Anne Durham

  ‘Was it her fault?’ Gwenny asked, without much interest.

  ‘Well, I would say, off the cuff, yes,’ Catherine murmured, softly laughing. She had such a silly laugh, Gwenny considered, and for a moment, although Gwenny didn’t know a thing about this new patient, she felt a strong bond of sympathy for her, simply because Catherine found her plight rather amusing.

  ‘What happened to her, then?’ Gwenny persisted.

  Catherine was bored; she had had another ‘rocket ‘from Sister, and one from the R.M.O., rather surprisingly. He was usually very forbearing with her

  She said, without thinking, ‘Oh, the silly old thing went right up the wall because some stupid person came to tell her to find other accommodation, so she runs out to find someone to tell about it, slips and can’t get up, and lies there soaked in the thunderstorm we had. (Oh, you wouldn’t know about that, little one!) Anyway, the old dear got pneumonia, and we have her on our women’s med. making a great fuss about the cottage she’s to lose. They do say it’s damp and poky and miles from anywhere, so I really don’t see what she has to worry about.’

  ‘How can you be so heartless?’ Gwenny said fiercely. The effort made her so hot she felt she couldn’t bear it another minute, but she couldn’t help it. ‘I know only too well what it’s like to be in that predicament.’

  ‘You do? But you live at home with your people!’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I mean I know an old person who is also worried sick about the thought of losing her cottage. Poor old Mrs. Yeedon, if only I could see her again—’

  Arthur Peake quietly appeared at the door. Gwenny didn’t give him a second glance and Catherine seemed unaware of his presence. She said, in surprise, ‘Why, that is her name! Mrs. Yeedon, queer old party, and very fierce about leaving her cottage—Oh, dear, I seem to have done it again!’ she broke off ruefully, as Gwenny tried to struggle up.

  ‘Mrs. Yeedon’s in here ill?’ Gwenny gasped. ‘Why didn’t you say so at first? What happened? When did it happen? Oh, why won’t anyone tell me?’

  The R.S.O. took over. He said to Catherine, ‘Fetch Bayfield,’ quietly, without looking up at her, and Catherine went, at the double. The R.M.O. had just left the main ward and was coming towards Gwenny’s room, so that was no problem, and Sister tagged along. All in all, there were six of them in that little room, because Sir Giles joined the fray within minutes, and Catherine was despatched to bring back the staff nurse.

  She escaped to the linen room to help Cosgrove, and was genuinely bothered, for once.

  Cosgrove said, unfeelingly, ‘Not more trouble?’

  Catherine Allen sat down suddenly, and looked rather white. ‘I’ve really done it this time,’ she said. ‘I wonder what that Kinglake girl has really got wrong with her? Honestly, you can’t say a thing to her without she gets all worked up and the fire bells go. I didn’t say very much—who’d think she’d know that old pneumonia case, anyway?’

  Cosgrove said: ‘Crumbs! You fly high, don’t you?’ and she looked horrified.

  ‘Well, what’s the problem?’ Catherine protested.

  ‘I thought everyone knew that old Mrs. Yeedon was one of Gwenny Kinglake’s special friends! She came in, you know, one day. Looked a proper old scarecrow in all her best things. But I don’t know, she didn’t seem a bad old party, really, and when she and Gwenny Kinglake were left alone, they had a really good natter, and that girl looked much better for the old woman coming. She ... she seemed to come to life,’ said Cosgrove, and went pink because she wasn’t given to using words to paint a picture.

  Catherine Allen didn’t even notice that. She was busy wondering what would happen to her. She had just realized that the R.S.O. must have been standing in the doorway behind her. At any other time, that would have aroused pleasant speculation because he not only had no need—he really had no right—to be in there. Gwenny Kinglake was purely a medical patient, not a surgical one. So it looked as if again he had been searching for Catherine herself. Oh, well, if there was a row, and he had heard what Catherine had been saying to that child Kinglake, then of course there would be the dickens of a row and Arthur Peake would lose interest.

  Catherine found herself wondering why she didn’t like that idea very much. Men were interesting pastimes, not to be worried over. Why should she care about the R.S.O.?

  People suddenly began to worry Catherine Allen. When she at last found courage to venture out from the linen room, long after Cosgrove had finished her sorting and departed, Catherine saw through the open doorway Gwenny Kinglake lying very quietly looking at the R.M.O., who sat by her side. Everyone else had gone, it seemed, except Sister, and she came out with her lips folded into a tight line, shut the door of the ward, thought better of it and opened it again a few inches, and marched away quickly—hardly noticing Catherine Allen at all.

  Catherine felt a little sick. What was Mark doing sitting like that at that girl’s bedside? It looked as if he were holding Gwenny Kinglake’s hand? No wonder Sister was in a pet about it! Catherine didn’t like that at all. She decided she must do something about it. There was one thing she could do, she thought, as she went to the kitchen to find a nice easy job that she wouldn’t make a mess of, because it was becoming rather boring to keep collecting ‘rockets ‘. She went to the table and began to cut bread and butter, while she thought of the obvious thing she could do, to stop Mark Bayfield sitting looking all wretched and indecently upset by that girl’s bedside.

  Gwenny had seen her go by. Just a glimpse of Catherine Allen and the old dislike of Catherine swept over her. But dislike for anyone was an emotion which could shake her and leave her feeling weak, for some reason. She didn’t understand it and it vaguely frightened her.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ she asked the R.M.O. bluntly.

  ‘You know you’ve got a bug, but you won’t tell me what you’ve been up to to give me the slightest clue about it.’

  ‘Can’t you find out by those specimens you’ve been messing about with?’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ he said dryly, but he was glad to be able to talk in this light-hearted vein to her. The last thing he wanted was to let her see how much she was beginning to mean to him. That would never do.

  ‘Well, what’s the good of being a doctor if you can’t diagnose a little thing like this? Well, people carry on at my brother Laurence and say he’s no good, but it strikes me you’re not very much better.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather cheeky?’ he asked quietly.

  The ghost of a smile touched her lips. ‘I suppose so. Sorry. Still, I’m getting awfully sick of being like this. I wish I could be up and about again. How I wish—’ and she had to bite hard on her bottom lip to stop it from wobbling.

  ‘What would you do if I could get you on your feet by waving a magic wand? Come on, tell, just what would you do?’ he coaxed her.

  Now, he thought, now was the mood and the solitude, just the two of them, and the chance to introduce some guileless questions which just might give him the answer he needed so badly.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Gwenny sighed. ‘Yes, I do, though. I’d go straight to Mrs. Yeedon’s cottage and I’d move in, so that no one could pull it down while she was ill in bed in hospital.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Oh, someone. I heard it somewhere. Half guessed it, anyway, because of Mr. Ancaster being so ill. I heard Daddy say one day that if anything happened to Ancaster that would be the end of a lot of small homes, but specialty to Mrs. Yeedon. And I heard, two days ago, that Mr. Ancaster wasn’t expected to live. How is he?’ Mark looked angry again, but she saw from his face, without his having to tell her, that Mr. Ancaster hadn’t pulled through. She turned away sharply, and couldn’t stop the flow of easy tears. She felt as if it was all too much for her and that she wished Mark Bayfield would fetch out his hypo syringe and put her to sleep for a long, long time, until all her problems were over.

  ‘Don’t cry, my dear. That isn’t goin
g to help anyone,’ he said, in that gentle yet firm tone that got such swift results with her. And he also put his hand on her head.

  It was queer, like sending electric shocks through her, and yet soothing her at the same time. She couldn’t work it out at all. She only knew she wished he wouldn’t have to take his hand away from her head.

  But of course, he did, and when he sat back, he began to talk to her in a way which seemed to flow smoothly over her yet she had to listen.

  ‘You seem to be giving a lot of your strength to worrying about all the old friends you have. Mr. Ancaster, now—’

  ‘He wasn’t a friend of mine,’ she choked. ‘I didn’t even meet him. But he makes such a difference to Mrs. Yeedon’s life.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. Mrs. Yeedon, now. She is a fine, good old woman, and I do appreciate her position very well, but the fact is, the anxiety over her seems to be having an effect on you which fills me with alarm. You see, whatever may be the outcome of all the tests I’ve had made in our path. lab. here, one thing is certain—I would have much more success if I could have ensured that you had no private worries. It ought to have worked out all right. We’ve vetted your visitors, but I believe your mother upset you one day. I can’t have you under sedation all the time—you wouldn’t want that yourself. You’ve had a good run of “going under” and you seemed much better than you are now. I’m not the person to assume that my patients have private anxieties and I’m not the sort of person who demands to be told what’s going on in their heads while I’m struggling to heal their bodies, but you do see, don’t you, that it might just possibly make it easier for me if you did tell me?’

  She slewed round to look at him. ‘I couldn’t tell you that, because it concerns you! You’d just blow your top and then I’d faint—I do stupid things like that when people get upset—and then where would we be?’

  He considered that point. Then he said, ‘Well, having said so much, I think you’ll have to finish, don’t you?’

  ‘Where shall I begin? The beginning?’

  ‘That is always considered the best point,’ he agreed gravely.

  She sighed. ‘Oh, well, here goes! Anything if it’s going to get me up again and out of this hospital. You know I just hate being here, of course?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I should have thought you’d feel rested, being in a place where people are watching your well-being and comfort every hour of the day. You were allowed to run pretty wild at home, I believe?’

  She coloured. ‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Each one was busy with his own concerns and I just—well, I’m no good for anyone.’

  ‘We’ll take up that point later. But let’s start with how I come into it, shall we?’

  ‘I’m going to be sorry I started this,’ she muttered.

  ‘Well, the fact is, I kept hearing about a doctor at the hospital in London where my brother and sister were, and this doctor was messing up everything for them—’

  ‘Would that be me?’ and his eyebrows shot up so high that Gwenny found him frankly intimidating.

  ‘It was just an impression I got, from the bits I kept overhearing people discussing. No one ever tells me anything at our house. I just have to pick up bits as and when I can. Perhaps I got it all wrong.

  ‘Go on. We’ll see.’

  ‘Well, I got the feeling that Priscilla was in love with this person, but then later I got the feeling that it was someone different that she was in love with but that this doctor everyone else hated was making it difficult for her. Baulked, I heard her say she was.’

  ‘Ah, I can well appreciate why she said that!’ he commented dryly. ‘Is there any more chalked up against me?’

  ‘Well, my brother Laurence was terribly disappointed, of course, when he applied to be at this hospital and you got the appointment instead.’

  ‘But I imagine no one in your home ever examined the point of view that the Board is impartial and that your brother might not just be what they were looking for?’ he said gently. ‘Think about it, will you? You’re too smart to be foxed into believing a chap is brilliant just because he happens to be your brother.’

  She bridled. ‘If I want to say Laurence is no good at his job, that’s for me to say—no one else!’

  He laughed gently and patted her hand. ‘Fair enough. You’re a loyal little soul, aren’t you? Well, is that all? Or did your mother have one or two things to chalk up against me?’

  She moved her shoulders restlessly. ‘Well, you did nip in and buy Fairmead when she’d been patiently after it for so long, and you never would appreciate just what that house meant to my mother, for her pet dream, did you?’

  ‘In house property one remembers the old adage, about all being fair in love and war, only one changes it to the property market and war. One cam change that adage how one wishes, but it holds good. In business, it’s the smart chap with the money who nips in first, but in this present instance, I haven’t heard that your mother had many other people backing her up in her rather unusual ideas to the extent of finding enough money to buy such a property. Am I right?’

  ‘I hate you,’ Gwenny muttered stormily. ‘You make it sound as if my family was all wrong, and you were so right, right all the time!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Don’t let’s quarrel, you and me, over it. Besides, it’s only your mother, brother and sister against me. I don’t believe your father ever cut me dead.’

  ‘You’re laughing at us all the time, and don’t think Daddy likes you any more than the others. I heard him say something about it would have to be that man who had our Gwenny’s life in his hands! Why did it have to be that man?’

  She hadn’t meant to say it. It just slipped out. She dashed her hand to her mouth and started to cry again.

  Mark Bayfield looked down at his locked hands, and said nothing for a time. He was so silent that it effectively stopped her flow of tears, and she offered shakily, ‘We are little people. Daddy’s just the local G.P. But we have feelings and we like to do things for our friends in our small way, and I get the feeling that Daddy also felt that the Bayfields were too powerful, and he couldn’t move because of them blocking him. Mr. Ancaster, for instance. Daddy always used to say things like—what will happen when Ancaster dies? Well, now it’s happened, and I feel he will be even more frustrated and unhappy because now it’s all big business and he can’t do a thing.’

  Still Mark didn’t answer.

  Gwenny persevered, ‘It isn’t only Mrs. Yeedon in her little cottage. It’s Mrs. Taylor in Church Terrace, and her cats. Mr. Ancaster was a kind landlord and let her keep as many animals as she wanted to. It was all she had, and he didn’t mind—but will a big property company feel like that—that’s if they leave Church Terrace alone! Daddy always felt, I think, that they would condemn them as unfit to live in, and turn everyone out.’

  ‘Into nice hygienic homes, perhaps?’ Mark said mildly, looking up at her with a very queer look in his eyes that she didn’t understand.

  ‘They don’t want nice hygienic places! They want their homes, where they’ve trained creepers over the years, and knocked up little rabbit hutches and hen houses and mended them and painted them against the weather. It’s sort of stitching your life into things, like that. You can’t just—’

  She trailed off, regarding him miserably.

  ‘And you are so weighted down with the problems of these old friends of yours that you won’t let me effect a cure, will you?’ he said gently.

  ‘I want you to cure me, of course I do, but I want to know that Mrs. Yeedon won’t be turned out of her cottage. How can she start a new herb garden at her time of life? And how will she be able to brew homely medicines over an electric wall panel? She doesn’t want gas central heating. She wants to bring in her own logs and dry them in her shed, and I can’t say I blame her. There’s nothing like the smell of her log fires and roasting chestnuts and hams hung to cure in the smoke of the rafters, and nothing nasty and frozen out of a fridge for supper, but s
omething brewed in her big iron pot, slowly, ever the open fire. You don’t know what those things are like—’

  ‘I think I do,’ he said softly, but she wasn’t listening.

  ‘And she likes being isolated. Do you know there isn’t another window overlooking hers for miles.’

  ‘But she went out and lay exposed and no one was any the wiser,’ he said swiftly. ‘and that was how she got ill, and that isn’t smart at her time of life.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have done anything so silly if she hadn’t been worried sick about her future,’ Gwenny said boldly. ‘And anyway, in bad weather, someone gees to see her every day. It’s a long-standing arrangement. And she can see what’s going on with her field-glasses, and when she needs help she keeps a lamp burning in her to window so someone is sure to see it.’

  ‘And yet she was left out m the open air long enough to get ill,’ he insisted.

  She was defeated. She just lay there, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  To take her mind off Mrs. Yeedon’s plight he said gently, ‘Don’t you go anywhere else but to the cottages of these old friends of yours?’

  ‘Oh, yes, at least I used to. Mummy used to make me go with to her to her committees where everyone talked at once and the food was awful. I’d much rather walk outside and visit my old friends!’

  ‘Would it make you happy if I called in at Church Terrace on the way home one day?’

  ‘Home? To Fairmead?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘To Fairmead,’ he agreed, very low. Fairmead meant a lot to him, she could see.

  ‘What’s it like now? Have you had much done to it?’ Gwenny asked him.

  ‘Quite a lot. In fact, I rather wondered whether, when you’re better, you’d like to come and inspect my bungling efforts to make a home out of that poor neglected old place. How do you feel about that? It might be fun, don’t you think?’