(3/20) Storm in the Village (18 page)

He had just paid a visit to old Mr Miller who had not fully recovered from his paroxysm at the parish meeting. He had aged considerably since this infernal business about the housing estate had blown up, thought Dr Martin. In a long life Mr Miller had had many troubles, but usually he had had his own way. The possession of his farm and his beloved acres, inherited from his family and in trust for the next generation, had given him confidence and joy. With that threatened he was a lost man, and though he fought bravely and his spirit burnt as fiercely as ever, his ageing body paid the price. He no longer slept the deep dreamless slumber of the healthily tired man who has spent the day working in the open air. His appetite had dwindled, and his sturdy compact little figure now had a pathetic droop. Dr Martin knew well that his medicines could do little against this spiritual canker. He doubted very much if they were taken at all, and though he had prescribed sleeping tablets for his crusty patient, he had been told by poor tearful Mrs Miller that her husband would not countenance them. Ah, it was a wretched threat that hung over them all! And until the thing was settled, one way or the other, Dr Martin supposed that he and his country neighbours would have to continue from day to day feeling as though a weight lay upon their chests.

He drew his car into the side of the lane, switched off the engine and filled his pipe meditatively. Through a wide gap in the hazel hedge beside him he had a clear view of Hundred Acre Field and the threatened landscape, which lay now with a heart-lifting serenity before him. How long those lovely lines had endured, thought the doctor, blowing out a fragrant blue cloud of tobacco smoke!

How many troubled and heavy-hearted men before him, clad in homespun, silks and lace, doublet and hose ... ay, and rough furs too ... had looked, as he did now, at those immemorial downs and had there found comfort? 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help,' the psalmist had said, in plain, sober, simple words, as lovely and as refreshing as clear water. And as vital too, the doctor mused, his mind now running on his patients. In these last few months he had had far more cases suffering from nervous strain than ever before. His advice was generally, 'Get out into the fresh air. Look at the life about you. Look out and not in. Nature can cure you where I can't. I can only give her a hand.'

Doctor Martin was a wise man and took his own advice. His observant eye watched now a bee pushing its way busily in and out among the velvety toad flax flowers that flared beneath the hedge in the hot sunlight. Along the edge of the open window crawled a ladybird, so recently alighted that its underwings were untidily folded under their red enamelled case, and protruded gauzy black snippets. It was moments like these, precious, quiet, contemplative breaks in the doctor's busy dav that revived him, and gave him the happiness and power to inspire his patients.

'Did me good just to see him,' people said. 'Always got time to listen to you. That chap at Caxley, as is always buzzing about like a blue-bottle, fair puts you in a tizzy when he comes tearing into the room, and don't appear to listen to half you says. Now our Doctor Martin he can speak sharp if need be, but you knows it's for your own good and he intends to get you well again. He's a real gentleman!'

The doctor took a last refreshing look at the view through die gap. In the distance he could see the humped thatch of Miss Clare's cottage, his next calling place. He'd better get along, he supposed, switching on the engine. Do the job before him and not linger too much on the misty future.

The engine came to life, but before moving off the doctor rested his hot sticky hands on the wheel and gazed unseeingly before him. He was drowsier than usual, in this heat, and say what you like this housing estate was deuced unsettling for a man of his age. What would become of him and his wife and all his great family of patients? He looked forward to retiring very soon, to spending more time with his much-loved wife, to tending his roses which were among the finest in the county, to pottering about in Fairacre—but the Fairacre he loved and worked in for so many years, not some raw new suburb of Caxley, smearing his beloved hills. It might be better to move if this came about. But why on earth should he? Lord, it was little enough to ask after a long life, surely? Just a few years' rest in the same place, with the same friends, the same pastimes and hobbies—and the same, please God, the same downs!

The doctor blinked rapidly and let in the clutch.

'Let's see if Dolly Clare can give me a cup of tea,' said he to the ladybird. 'If I go on like this I shall be in bed with poor old Miller!'

Miss Clare, in Dr Martin's opinion, had gone back in health during the past few weeks and he knew, as well as the rest of Fairacre knew, just why. The indiscretions of her lodger had not passed completely unnoticed, though no one quite knew how far the affair had gone. Miss Clare had been blaming herself needlessly for not warning the girl against the Franklyn fellow, whose name was a byword. Could she have helped her more? The question remained unanswered in the days that followed Hilary Jackson's adventure, and sadly troubled Miss Clare.

Mr and Mrs Annett had evolved a plan of which Dr Martin thoroughly approved.

'We're taking a little house for three weeks in August, by the sea, near Barrisford,' George Annett had said to the doctor when he had called in with young Malcolm's tome.

'Though why he needs a tonic, I really don't know,' observed the doctor, eyeing his young patient, who was bouncing energetically up and down in his pram to the detriment of its springs.

'But you ordered it!' protested Mrs Annett, wide-eyed. She looked up from buckling her exuberant son into his harness.

'Should have been bromide,' returned the doctor, smiling. 'Push him into the garden and then come and tell me all about the holiday plans.'

It appeared that the Annetts were as perturbed as the doctor himself was about Miss Clare's frail health, and had invited her to spend the three weeks with them by the sea, but she had gently declined.

'There's a spare bedroom,' went on Mrs Annett earnestly, 'and we truthfully would love her to be with us, and I'm sure the air would do her a world of good—'

'But she feels she may be in the way; that she would be an added expense, that you three young things should be together alone, and so on, and so on. I know. You don't have to tell me what's in Dolly Clare's mind. She's a living saint and as obstinate as a mule,' responded Dr Martin.

'Can you do anything to help?' asked Mr Annett.

'I should think I might try,' said the doctor, his eye taking on that gleam which meant that he was up to his tricks. 'I shall ted her that you two could get out together if she weren't such a selfish old woman as to refuse to do an hour or two's sitting-in—'

'
Please,
' begged Mrs Annett, horrified, 'don't say anything so wicked!'

'And then I could tell her that I am having sleepless nights because she is such an obstinate patient and won't do as she's told, and my health is suffering,' he continued, warming to his theme. 'And finally, I could threaten her with Sister Ada who has offered, somewhat grudgingly, to have her there if need be. That should settle it nicely,' said this incorrigible meddler in the affairs of others, with a satisfied smile.

The Annetts gazed at him aghast. George was the first to find his breath.

'I don't ready think there's any need for such wholesale lying,' he began in a schoolmasterish voice, but he was cut short.

'There's no need at all,' agreed the doctor with a disarming smile, making his way to the door, 'but I enjoy a thundering good he if it makes my patients see reason. Remember your Kipling?'

He stood in the doorway, his white hair standing out like an aureole, and his eyes twinkling.

'Not a little place at Tooting—
But a country house with shooting,
And a ring-fence, deer-park lie!'

he quoted triumphantly, and vanished into the sunshine.

The door of Miss Clare's cottage stood ajar on that throbbing hot afternoon. Dr Martin put his head round, but there was no one to be seen.

He stepped down into the brick-floored living-room. It was cool in here, under the sheltering thatch, and a fine bouquet of mixed roses caught his eye. Their reflection gleamed in the polished table on which they stood.

He looked around him, noting the freshness of the curtains, the gleam of copper on the mantelpiece and the crystal clearness of Miss Clare's leaded panes. These silent objects stood as proof of their mistress's zeal and devotion to them. They might be older than, and as frail as, their owner, but they were as full of grace.

'An hour's less polishing, and one more hour in bed,' thought Dr Martin, 'would be ideal, but I'll never get her to do that, I fear.'

A small noise above attracted his attention. He went to the door of the box staircase, opened it by its latch, and called aloft.

'Anybody there?'

There was a creaking of a bed and Miss Clare's voice answered.

Til be down in just one moment, doctor. I was having a rest.'

'You stay there then. I'll be up,' said the doctor, stooping for his black bag.

'But I'm in my petticoat—' began Miss Clare.

'AU the better,' responded Dr Martin, mounting the narrow stairs sturdily, 'I want to listen to your chest, anyway.'

He entered the bedroom to find his patient propped up against two fat feather pillows, with the eiderdown over her legs. Miss Clare's top half was decorously clad in a pale-grey lock-knit petticoat with a modestly high neckline. A novel lay, face downward, upon the bed.

Miss Clare smiled at her old friend.

'It was too hot for anything round my shoulders,' she said.

'Well, you won't shock me, my dear, I can assure you. That petticoat's a sight more decent than Minnie Pringle's sun top she was daunting in the lane just now.'

He fetched a cane-bottomed chair, set it by the bedside, and adjusted his stethoscope. It was very quiet in the cottage bedroom. Outside a faint rustling came from the jasmine at the window, and a sparrow, who lived in the thatch above, glanced in, upside down, with a beady eye and, with a frightened chirrup, flew away.

'Humph!' said the doctor grimly, folding up his instrument and stuffing it in the black bag. 'You're not doing as well as you should.'

'I'm sorry,' said Miss Clare contritely, and patted the doctor's hand, as though it were he, and not she, who needed reassurance. Dr Martin saw his opening.

'I must admit it worries me. Here I am doing ad I can for you—and I do honestly believe you are eating more and resting more often-but you don't quite get on as I'd like. I don't mind telling you, Dolly, I'm beginning to wonder if I'm past my job.' He shook his white head slowly. For such a burly fellow he really had a very nice line in pathos. Miss Clare watched him quizzically.

'You can't be expected to replace worn-out hearts,' she said gently. Dr Martin continued to look sad.

'I wonder if you ought to join forces with your sister Ada,' he said, with such sweet, spontaneous reasonableness, that even he was surprised to hear his own voice.

'Never!' said Miss Clare firmly. 'Not even for your comfort, doctor!'

Dr Martin now rose and paced restlessly about the diminutive bedroom, his head narrowly missing the beam that ran across the whitewashed ceding. He had thrust his hands into his pockets, and with shoulders hunched he prowled thoughtfully, wearing an expression of extreme perplexity. Miss Clare watched him affectionately.

'If only you could get away somewhere—have a change of air, preferably by the sea—say, for two or three weeks, I believe it would set you up completely.'

'Would it?' said Miss Clare, with suspicious meekness.

'Indeed it would. Otherwise, I must see about a nursing home or something of that nature for you, for a sped before the winter.'

There was a slightly threatening note in this last sentence, which did not elude Miss Clare.

'And what about my lodger?'

'Your lodger,' burst out the good doctor, standing stock-still and glaring at his patient over the bedrail, 'could do with a dam' good spanking, and I hope her father's given her one by this time!'

'She's only young and silly—' Miss Clare began to protest; but she was cut short.

'I won't waste my breath on such a fool, but she's responsible for your set-back, and that I cannot forgive.'

'I shall get better now that the holidays are here. Don't worry about me.'

'You won't unless you get away. Everything here reminds you of her, and in your present low state it will take more than half an hour under the eiderdown to cure you, my girl.' There was a pause, and doctor and patient looked steadily at each other across the quiet room. The doctor broke the silence first.

'Dolly, I shan't feel at ease until you have a holiday. What about it?'

Miss Clare gave him a slow, lovely smile, but her eyes were mischievous.

•You've been talking to the Annetts,' she said.

Dr Martin threw his head back in a gusty laugh.

'Well, what of it?' he protested. 'I did just have a word—'

'And planned ad this after that word!' smiled Miss Clare. 'And how well you do it too! I was beginning to feel quite anxious about your failing powers!'

'But, Dolly,' said the doctor, suddeidy grave. 'Will you go? It isn't all humbug, you know. I'd like you to be wed again. This offer means health for you, and a chance for those two young people to get out on their own without that baby, if you'd feel up to coping with it occasionally.'

This aspect of it, as the wily doctor had foreseen, touched Miss Clare at once.

'If I really can be of help,' she said slowly, 'then I will go with the greatest pleasure.'

'You will!' shouted Dr Martin, with delight. 'That's the best news I've heard today. Now mind you keep your word!'

'Of course I shall,' said Miss Clare indignantly. 'And now, if you'll wait downstairs I'll get dressed and we'd make a pot of tea.'

'Put your legs straight back under the eiderdown,' ordered her medical adviser, 'and
I'll
make the tea and bring it up here.'