New Doctor at Northmoor (8 page)

‘
He loves it,
’
Gwenny said, with a small smile.
‘
It
’
s all he
’
s got to love, isn
’
t it? Funny, how we have to have someone or something to love? You and your cottage, and Clem and his van:
Mrs.
Taylor and her cat, and that poor old man at Church Terrace, with his birds.
’

‘
You and those folk in the village,
’
Mrs.
Yeedon scolded;
‘
I wonder your father allows you to go poking around Church Terrace. They
’
re mighty poor holes, when all
’
s said and done, and the folk there could do with
a good scrub
‘

‘
Oh, that
’
s not so,
’
Gwenny protested.

‘
—and
they
’
ve got bad drains,
’
Mrs.
Yeedon added for good measure.

‘
You haven
’
t got any drains at all,
’
Gwenny pointed out reasonably.

‘
No, that I haven
’
t, but I
’
ve got what I have at the bottom of my garden where it should be, a comfortable way from where a body lives,
and
it
’
s clean and well attended to,
and
I don
’
t live shoulder to shoulder with a lot of other bodies, and no long gardens to separate it from the house, so don
’
t you talk, miss! Ah, there now, I didn
’
t mean to scold you, ill as you are, but you wor
r
y me so, the things you do and the company you keep. That old man with his horrible birds—what was his name, now?
’

‘
I never knew it. They call him Jock,
’
Gwenny said.
‘
And they
’
re very interesting birds. His son brought them home as presents when he came off his ship, and now his son has died, and these birds are all he has. And he
’
s training one of them to talk.
’

Horrible,
’
Mrs.
Yeedon said wrathfully.
‘
Against nature.
’

Gwenny considered her,
Mrs.
Yeedon lived as close to nature as could be imagined, but when it came to criticizing other people, that was different.

Mrs.
Taylor
’
s cats are interesting, too,
’
Gwenny said.
‘
I wish they
’
d have let me keep cats at home—and
kittens. I adore
kittens. But Mother always said—’

‘
I never knew a doctor
’
s house with a lot of animals prowling around,
’
Mrs.
Yeedon said roundly.
‘
Wouldn
’
t
be right. Now, my lamb, I
’
ve brought you some honey from my own bees, and some crab-apple jelly which I made myself from a secret recipe, and if I can
’
t come again, I
’
ll get that Clem to bring you in a few things.
’
Gwenny did seem brighter after the old woman had gone, Mark Bayfield considered. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes as she said,
‘
Sister took all Granny Yeedon
’
s things away. I think Sister believes she
’
s a witch.
’

Mark Bayfield
’
s lips twitched.
‘
A good many people are of the same opinion, I believe, but personally I find her an extremely interesting person,
’
and he talked hard about the elderly countrywomen he had known, while he gave Gwenny an injection that sent her under for what seemed a very long time.

That became the pattern of life at the hospital for Gwenny. Long periods of blissful oblivion, and long periods when tiresome tests were made, and Mark Bayfield came to sit by her to ask her apparently innocent questions about her background, which she afterwards resented, when she had had time to think about them.

Priscilla and Laurence went back to London to their hospitals, and
Mrs.
Kinglake took up with renewed vigour the question of another large property which she hoped to buy for her old people
’
s home, and
Dr.
Kinglake returned to chasing his own tail,
tr
ying to keep up an ever-increasing practice. He came sometimes to see her, and Gwenny noticed how wistfully he half-listened to the sounds of hospital while he talked to her.

One day he said to her,
‘
No use asking you why you didn
’
t tell me when you first began to feel unwell, I suppose
?’

‘
It doesn
’
t really matter any more, does it, Daddy? You
’
re always so busy.
’

‘
No, I suppose it doesn
’
t
,’
he sighed.
‘
Tell me, when you were at home, did Priscilla tell you anything about her life at her hospital?
’

‘
She didn
’
t tell me anything. I
’
m just the kid sister, remember?
’
she smiled.

‘
Oh. I thought
’
she might have
,’
he said, and stared at Gwenny. He wanted to tell her he would never forgive himself for not seeing this coming on, but he felt too strongly that he would not have known what it was if he had noticed how unwell she was. He might have treated her for som
ething else. He was no Mark Bayfield
. That smarted horribly and made him forget that he had come here today with the express intention of making Gwenny see, somehow, that he loved her more than she dreamed. There was a dreadful ache inside of him, driving him to make her see how much she meant to him. But he had no way of showing her, and he got up to go with the depressed feeling that there was so little time in the course of the day and he always felt so driven by his work to be anything else but impatient, and so how could he manage to show her he cared? You couldn
’
t just announce that someone meant so much to you. It had to be a long process of showing the other person what a big place in your thoughts they occupied. Like old
Mrs.
Yeedon, who had the time to be kind; perhaps the gift of being kind, too. He felt, wretchedly, that all he had was the capacity to be an adequate G.P. and he was so busy doing just that, in every waking moment, that slinging kindness around was something that never occurred to him.

He had even lost the art of smoothing her hair back, as he had done once. He started to raise his hand to touch that bright hair, and then he turned away sharply, his emotions overriding the action, and making his throat constrict. This beloved child might never come out of this hospital, if someone like Mark Bayfield couldn
’
t work what still seemed a small miracle.

Gwenny watched him leave her room, with mixed feelings. To her it seemed that he was regarding her as the young one of the family, the tiresome one that everyone had to keep thinking about, in case she was getting into trouble. She wondered what he would say if he ever found out how much time she spent in the cottages in Church Terrace, for instance. Or how much time she had spent with the grubby children of Maudie Trice, who earned her living by mopping out the shops in the village. There were people who said that Maudie
’
s own cottage could do with a mop out, but Maudie was too tired to do anything when she got home. Her old mother made some fearful concoction in a stewpan for them to eat. People said it was the sort of stew gypsies made, with hedgehogs and stolen chickens and rabbits. Whatever it was, it smelt good, and sometimes Gwenny had it with them, while she played with the little ones, who were fat and brown and barefoot, and almost always happy. Happiness was an elusive thing that fascinated Gwenny when she found it in other people. You had to look for it in places like the Trice cottage, the cottages in Church Terrace, in Clem with his stutter and his beloved van, in Granny Yeedon
’
s cottage, among her herbs and concoctions. Not in the Kinglake house.

Gwenny lay and thought about all that, when she wasn
’
t
‘
under
‘
, as she called it, but she couldn
’
t tell her favourite nurse about it. Nurse Cosgrove
’
s eyes danced over the top of her mask as she regaled Gwenny with hospital activities, but Gwenny had little to tell her in return, without voicing the personal and private things that troubled her.

‘
Well, what
do
you do with your time?
’
Nurse Cosgrove asked her one day.
‘
Help your father in surgery? No? Help your mother with her committees? Oh, yes, we know all about
you
r mother—she even had a brush with Sir Giles Faraday
’
s wife who is on your mother
’
s committee and the entertainments committee here, so you see, we feel the repercussions. Wouldn
’
t think so, would you?
’

Gwenny was staggered.
‘
What
’
s it like, being a nurse? I rather hoped I
’
d be one when I
’
m eighteen, but my sister, who is a nurse, seems to think I wouldn
’
t be much good.
’

‘
Is your sister any good?
’
Nurse Cosgrove wanted to know.

‘
I suppose so. She
’
s getting through her exams in her hospital in London, and Daddy isn
’
t extra furious with her, so I suppose she
’
s good at her job.
’

That made Nurse Cosgrove giggle.
‘
Well, keep the idea in mind, because life in hospital can be rather fun. We do loads of things in our spare time. We have a very active entertainments committee really. The R.S.O.
’
s very keen—have you met Arthur Peake yet, by the way? Big handsome chap, not as big as our new R.M.O. (who is by way of being the most gorgeous brute I
’
ve ever seen!) but he
’
s pretty big, and great fun really.
’

‘
Arthur Peake,
’
Gwenny repeated.
‘
He wouldn
’
t be the nice man with the square, freckled face and sort of bronze hair, would he?
’

‘
Ginger, to quote himself. Yes, that
’
s right. He really is very nice,
’
said Cosgrove.
‘
We
’
re having a garden party soon. Maybe you
’
ll be fit enough to get your bed turned round to the window, and you
’
ll be able to see what
’
s going on. You
’
re only on the first floor, and the main lawns and rose gardens are just outside.
’

‘
That will be nice,
’
Gwenny sighed, and turned away.

‘
What
’
s the matter? Aren
’
t you feeling too good? Shall I call Sister?
’

‘
No, I
’
m all right. It
’
s just that I felt a bit scared. I sometimes think I shan
’
t ever get well.
’

‘
What a lot of rot
,’
Nurse Cosgrove scolded.
‘
You
’
d better not let the new R.M.O. hear you say that. He
’
s got great hopes of you. Come to think of it, it must be rather marvellous to have him for one
’
s doctor. Is it true that you knew him before you came in?
’

‘
Sort of,
’
Gwenny allowed.
‘
By way of trespassing on his new property.
’

Nurse Cosgrove thought that very funny indeed and she tried to persuade Gwenny to gossip further. When Gwenny wouldn
’
t, she threw out some choice bits of bait.