New Doctor at Northmoor

by Anne Durham

‘I suddenly realized I was being a fool when I heard that there was a rich man in your life, that you had kept secret, and meant to continue to keep secret.’

  She turned away, and she couldn’t control her face any longer. ‘Why didn’t you tell me Catherine was your half-sister?’ she choked. ‘It took Arthur Peake to do that, when he became engaged to her. That’s funny, I’ve just remembered—he said one of those things about the R.M.O. not liking it, when Catherine remarked about my secret rich man.’

  The silence was unbearable, so she swung around, unaware of her ravaged face, and threw at him: ‘Well, why don’t you say something? You surely can’t expect me to believe that you send flowers like that every day to each of your patients.’

  ‘No, I do not expect you to believe that,’ he said, and she had never heard his voice so uncertain before. ‘I sent them because—Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gwenny, what do you want me to say? You got under my skin the first day I saw you here and you fainted. You were so lovely, so vulnerable, such a fighty little scrap, so—My dear, I don’t know what they’ve done to you. I just wish I could turn back the clock,’ he said, as he took her into his arms and held her, his face close to the top of her head, his voice muffled in her ear, as he held her as if he’d never let her go.

  It seemed a long time afterwards that he held her away from him, held her face between his two hands, and looked at her, unable to tear his eyes away. ‘I love you so much, my dear,’ he said. ‘I felt as if I’d lost everything when your own sister told me there was someone else. I just didn’t care. I might have put up a fight for Fairmead, but I just didn’t bother.’

  ‘Priscilla? She knew there was no one else! I told her it was just a story,’ Gwenny said wrathfully. ‘But I don’t suppose she was listening—her head was full of Ralph Milward. There isn’t anyone else, Mark—there couldn’t be—I suppose I’ve known that since I first met you, too. Only there was the thing about that diary and the note in it, and it coming from Priscilla, so I thought you’d given it toher and written that note to her—’

  ‘That diary, my dear, was given to an old patient, a very elderly patient, who I never thought would “do”. She did, and when she regained full health, like so many of them, she forgot our little talks, in the small hours, when we swapped bits of poetry and reminiscences of the nice things we’d had in our lives. I’m not surprised she either threw the diary away or gave it to some little nurse who might have fancied it. It was nothing, nothing at all.’

  ‘And Priscilla? Why did she hate you so? I thought—we all thought, at first—that she’d been around with you and you’d hurt her in some way.’

  He held her off. ‘You really thought that, Gwenny?’

  ‘Well, I hardly knew you, and she was my sister, and the whole family had something against you!’

  ‘Priscilla and I didn’t hit it off from the start because I caught her coming in late, very late, and she made the mistake of trying to be nice to me, to persuade me not to report her. Now, my dear, if you don’t know that that isn’t my way, then you and I had better take a long, long look at each other before we go any further. And if you don’t know your sister by now, you never will. She couldn’t forgive me for not succumbing to her charms and reporting her just the same.’

  ‘Was that all, really all?’ Gwenny asked him.

  ‘That was all, but of course it was possibly quite important to your sister. And don’t let’s be mistaken about this—she’s all right with me now, because she’s happy, and Ralph Milward will no doubt make her a good husband. But bear in mind that some time in the future there might just be something Priscilla will want me to do for them, and she’ll try her kitten ways on me and be just as furious with me again if I don’t feel it’s right to accede to her demands. Because that’s me, my dear. If I feel it right to say no, then no one, but no one, is going to make me deviate from the decision I have made.’

  ‘Oh, don’t I know it!’ Gwenny said, with a half-smile that reminded him of the Gwenny he had first met.

  ‘And you still want to make a life with me, in spite of that?’ he asked her, and she could see it was important for him to know.

  ‘Well, ask me, Mark,’ she murmured.

  ‘I am asking you, my dearest dear, to marry me, and share a life with me. Will you?’

  ‘Oh, Mark, yes, yes! I couldn’t bear it if I thought I’d lost you again!’ she sighed.

  He took her into his arms and kissed her, a long, long kiss that was only disturbed by sounds outside. The demolition men had arrived.

  Gwenny stared in dismay at them through the windows. ‘We have to go, my dear. It’s time,’ said Mark. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find you another Fairmead.’

  She considered it, standing there hand in hand, as they watched the men get down from the great vehicles and prepare to remove from the face of the earth, the house she had once loved so much.

  She sighed, and turning to Mark, she said, ‘Don’t worry. I don’t mind, not all that much, so long as there’s a home for us, and you beside me, for always.’